Preamble

The House met at a Quarter before Three of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

Westminster City Council (General Powers) Bill [Lords],

Read the Third time, and passed, with Amendments.

Ministry of Health Provisional Orders (No. 9) Bill,

Read the Third time, and passed.

Ministry of Health Provisional Order (Shaftesbury Extension) Bill,

Read the Third time, and passed.

Ministry of Health Provisional Orders (No. 7) Bill,

As amended, considered; to be read the Third time To-morrow.

Oral Answers to Questions — GOVERNMENT STAFFS.

MINISTRY OF PENSIONS.

Mr. R. RICHARDSON: 6.
asked the Minister of Pensions the amount of administrative expenses of local war pensions committees for the year ending 31st December, 1918, and 31st December, 1920?

Mr. ALFRED DAVIES (Clitheroe): 7.
inquired as to the number of persons employed on the staff of the Pensions Ministry on 31st December, 1918, and 31st December, 1920; and the number of persons receiving salaries of £500 per annum or over, including bonuses, on 31st December, 1918, and 31st December, 1920?

Mr. MILLS: 11.
asked the Minister of Pensions how many officials in his Depart-
ment at present receive a salary of £l,000, including war bonus, or over; and how many received a salary of £1,000, or over, in June, 1914?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of PENSIONS (Major Tryon): There can be no just comparison between 1918 and 1920. From 1918 onwards the work of War Pensions Committees was, as my hon. Friend knows, largely increased. Further, the staff of local committees which in 1918 was mainly voluntary is now employed on a salaried basis. In 1918, before the extension of the work due to demobilisation and other causes, the approximate amount of the administrative expenses of local committees was £500,000. In 1920 it was £1,200,000. This increasing expenditure was one of the reasons which actuated my right hon. Friend in appointing the Departmental Committee of Inquiry, over which I preside. As regards the staff in the direct employ of the Ministry, the numbers on the dates mentioned in 1918 and 1920 were 9,036 and 17,804 respectively, exclusive of hospital staff. The present number of officials (including 151 medical officers employed on a temporary basis) who are in receipt of salaries of £1,000 a year or more, including bonuses, is 184. The number receiving £500 a year, or over, including bonuses at the dates mentioned in 1918 and 1920, were respectively 268 (including 160 medical officers) and 880 (including 642 medical officers).

Captain GEE: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that this is a plain example of the superficial interest taken by the hon. Member for Dartford—who put down Question No. 11—in the ex-service man, as he evidently does not know that the, Ministry of Pensions is a product of the War?

Major TRYON: It apparently is the case that the hon. Member for Dartford is not aware of the fact that in 1914 there was no Pensions Ministry.

MINISTRY OF LABOUR.

Mr. SWAN: 100.
asked the Minister of Labour how many officials in his Department at present receive a salary of £1,000, including War bonus, or over; and how many received a salary of £1,000, or over, in June, 1914?

The MINISTER of LABOUR (Dr. Macnamara): The Ministry of Labour
was not established until the end of 1916, and the comparative statement asked for by the hon. Member cannot therefore be made. The cost of living bonus payable to civil servants is a fluctuating quantity, and varies with the cost of living index figures. The bonus rate is due for revision on the 1st September next. It is not therefore possible to state with precision the number of officers who will receive a total remuneration, inclusive of bonus, of £1,000 or over in the present financial year. The number of officers whose rate of remuneration, exclusive of bonus, reaches or exceeds £1,000 a year at the present time is 37.

POST OFFICE (LEAVE).

Mr. T. THOMSON: 106.
asked the Postmaster-General the approximate number of his headquarters' and local staff who are entitled to an annual holiday of over four weeks' duration?

The POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. Kellaway): In the Post Office service as a whole the number is approximately 9,000. Of these the vast majority are entitled to 27 working days' leave.

Mr. THOMSON: Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether any official is entitled to the four weeks, and, if so, is he compelled to take the holiday, whether he wants it or not?

Mr. KELLAWAY: I have not discovered any case where men do not want to take the holiday. I should like to have particulars. The vast majority are entitled to 27 working days' leave.

Oral Answers to Questions — NAVAL AND MILITARY PENSIONS AND GRANTS.

REGIONAL AWARDS.

Mr. HALLS: 8.
asked the Minister of Pensions the number of pensions awarded by each region during the six months ending 31st December, 1920, and the administrative expenses of each regional headquarters during the same period?

Major TRYON: In view of the number of figures involved, I am circulating the answer in the OFFICIAL REPORT. But I
may say briefly that 574,299 applications were considered during the period mentioned, 532,659 awards were made, and 41,640 claims rejected. The total expenditure for the regions incurred in administration during that period was £689,728.

The figures are as follow:


1ST JULY—31ST DECEMBER, 1920.


Region
No. of Awards made.*
Total Expenditure incurred in Administration. †


Scotland
51,883
70,200


Northern
34,932
38,094


North Western
56,796
82,999


Yorkshire
51,552
59,859


Wales
31,772
49,838


West Midlands
47,708
56,532


East Midlands
37,027
38,921


South-Western
38,611
48,455


London
151,538
185,297


Ulster
12,542
24,043


South Ireland
18,298
35,490


Totals
532,659
689,728


* In addition 41,640 claims were examined and rejected.


† Including Regional Administration expenses for medical treatment, local administration, etc.

CHILDREN'S ALLOWANCES.

Sir HENRY HARRIS: 10.
asked the Minister of Pensions whether he is aware that the present practice of deducting the whole amount of pension issuable in respect of a child when it is obliged to enter a rate-aided institution bears very hardly on the mother where there is more than one child; and whether he will adopt the procedure which prevailed, with regard to separation allowances, during the War and pool the children's allowances, one share of the pool being deducted in respect of each child who has to enter an infirmary or other rate-aided institution?

Major TRYON: Recent investigations showed that of the children mentioned approximately 70 per cent. are younger children. I am afraid, therefore, that my hon. Friend's proposal would, in general, prove to be disadvantageous to the mother, and my right hon. Friend is not prepared to accept it.

Oral Answers to Questions — IRELAND.

INTERNEES (PAROLE).

Captain WEDGWOOD BENN: 13.
asked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether Mr. Colivet is at present interned without charge at Spike Island; and whether permission was refused for him to visit his dying wife?

The ATTORNEY - GENERAL for IRELAND (Mr. Denis Henry): Owing to the sentiments expressed by internees that parole given to a British officer was not binding and to the incitement by a well-known public man, himself interned, encouraging his fellow internees to break their parole, it has been necessary to prohibit parole altogether. One man Francis O'Donnell, actually failed to keep his word, and all internees have been informed that this man is directly responsible for the withdrawal of the privilege. Mr. Colivet applied for parole after the death of his wife, but no exception could be made in his case. He is at present in Spike Island.

Captain BENN: Does the right hon. Gentleman think the reasons he has advanced sufficient to prevent this man —a Member of this House—having permission to go on parole to visit his dying wife?

Mr. HENRY: The application, as I understand, was made after the lady's death.

Captain BENN: Has the right hon. Gentleman seen the resolution passed by the Limerick Town Council on the subject, drawing attention to the full facts of the case?

Mr. HENRY: No, Sir.

PRISON OFFICERS.

Mr. R. RICHARDSON: 14.
asked the Chief Secretary if single officers in Irish prisons are still denied the domestic facilities and lodging allowances conceded in England, and will he take steps to have the assimilation scheme carried out without the usual delay; is he aware that many of the smaller prisons are understaffed, resulting in long hours of duty and discontent among the staff; and will he call for a Report from the governors on the matter?

Mr. HENRY: The concessions to single officers in Ireland in the matter of sub-
sistence and detention allowances are not as extensive as in England, although they are so framed as to prevent any financial loss to such officers. The question of assimilating allowances generally is, however, being considered. I am aware that the prison officers throughout the Irish prisons service are working cheerfully under difficult conditions, but I am not aware of any special grievance in any prison which can be attributed to shortage of staff.

MILITARY OPERATIONS.

Mr. GALBRAITH: 16 and 50.
asked the Chief Secretary (1) whether a woman named Mrs. Foley, aged nearly 80, was shot at Carriglea, near Dungarvan, by a man in a military or police lorry while she was gathering sticks by the riverside; whether an inquiry has been held; and what reason is given for the killing of this woman;
(2) whether he is aware that a; woman named Mrs. Foley, aged nearly 80, was shot at Carriglea, near Dungarvan, by a man in a military or police lorry while she was gathering sticks by the riverside; whether an inquiry has been held; and what reason is given for the killing of this inoffensive woman?

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: 15.
asked the Chief Secretary whether his attention has been drawn to the shooting by the forces of the Crown, on 28th May, of Mrs. Mary Foley of Garryroe, near Dungarvan, County Waterford; whether he is aware that this woman was 70 years of age; that at the time of her being shot she was standing in a field near her home with no other companions than two small children; and that after she had been shot, at about 3 p.m., no medical assistance was rendered by the military authorities until 9 p.m., by which time Mrs. Foley was dead; and whether he is prepared to make any statement on the subject?

Mr. HENRY: I am informed by the Commander-in-Chief that while Mrs. Foley with her two children were engaged in picking up sticks in a field near her home a military patrol operating in the district was fired at from the direction of the field in which this unfortunate woman was standing. The fire was returned and Mrs. Foley was accidentally wounded. This happened at 3.15 in the afternoon and the officer in command summoned
civilians to help the wounded woman and then continued the pursuit of the rebels. Help was at hand within ten minutes, but a doctor sent for by the civilians did not arrive until 6.40 p.m. a quarter of an hour after Mrs. Foley had died.

Mr. KENYON: 17.
asked the Chief Secretary whether an inquiry has yet been held into the killing of three men named Ryan, Ahern, and Flynn, at Carigtwohill, County Cork, on the 17th May, while in custody of a party of military; and if so, what is its finding?

Mr. HENRY: The Court of Inquiry found that these men were shot by Crown forces in the exercise of their duty and that no blame attached to any member of the Crown forces concerned. Ryan and Ahern were shot in an attempt to escape from military escort after being warned that in the event of any such attempt they would be fired on. In the case of Richard Flynn a military party which had been sent to arrest him was fired on from the house and Flynn himself was shot while running out from the back door. His son Timothy Flynn who attempted to ecape with Ryan and Ahern was wounded.

Mr. KENYON: 19.
asked the Chief Secretary whether the destruction of houses at Kingswilliamstown, County Kerry, destroyed on the 29th January, was carried out by order of an officer and, if so, of what rank; and whether any disciplinary action has been taken in view of his exceeding his powers on that occasion?

Mr. HENRY: The circumstances of this case were fully described in my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary's reply to the hon. Member last Thursday. The officer who was in charge of the auxiliary police on this occasion has since been murdered.

Mr. BRIANT: 20.
asked the Chief Secretary whether an inquiry has been held into the death of Patrick Hickey, of Inniskeen, County Cork, who was shot dead on 25th May; and whether any arrests have been made?

Mr. HENRY: The Court of Inquiry in lieu of inquest in the case of Patrick Hickey, Laravotta, County Cork, found that the deceased was accidentally shot by the military during a conflict with rebels who had refused to halt when called
upon and were endeavouring to escape-across the bog where the unfortunate man was turf cutting.

Mr. KILEY: 21.
asked the Chief Secretary what is the result of the inquiry into the killing of John Quinn and wounding of Patrick Walsh, at Kilmanagh, County Kilkenny, on the 21st May last?

Mr. HENRY: I have not yet received the finding of the Court of Inquiry in the case of Quinn, but according to the police report he and Walsh formed part of a rebel force 300 strong which occupied the village of Kilmanagh on 12th May. On the following day, that is, 13th May, Crown forces came into contact with a portion of this column. The rebels opened fire, which was replied to by the Crown forces, with the result that Quinn was killed and Walsh, who had been recently released after serving a sentence of imprisonment, was wounded.

Mr. RENDALL: 42.
asked the Chief Secretary whether an inquiry has been held into the death of John Sheehan, of Collee, Listowel, stated to have been shot dead by members of the Crown forces on the 25th May; and what is its finding?

Mr. HENRY: I have not yet received the report of the Court of Inquiry in this case, but according to the police report Sheehan was shot by Crown forces after refusing to halt when challenged. In his possession were found a fully-loaded revolver, 15 rounds of flat-nosed revolver ammunition, a railway ticket for London, and a number of London addresses.

Mr. C. WHITE: 56.
asked the Chief Secretary whether an inquiry has been held into the death of Michael Mullooly, said to have been shot by members of the Crown forces on 24th March at Kiltrustan, County Roscommon; and with what result?

Mr. HENRY: The Court of Inquiry in this ease found that deceased was shot by a member of the Crown forces in the execution of his duty.

MURDERS.

Mr. KENYON: 19.
asked the Chief Secretary whether arrests have yet been made in connection with the death of Michael Ryan, of Kilfeakle, County Tipperary, who was found dead on the road on the 19th February?

Mr. HENRY: No arrest has been made in this case. The Court of Inquiry found that Ryan had been wilfully murdered by some person or persons unknown.

Mr. DEVLIN: 67.
asked the Chief Secretary whether his attention has been called to, the murder of John Murphy, B.A., national school teacher, at Ballinalee, County Longford; whether he is aware that in the early hours of Thursday, 26th May, six masked and armed men, wearing light raincoats and rubber-soled shoes, came to his home and dragged him away, despite the protestations of his wife and himself, and shot him dead a little distance from his home; whether at the military inquiry next day the widow stated that the murderers spoke with a marked English accent. that she could identify some of them, and that she was prepared to swear that they were members of the auxiliary forces stationed at Ballinalee Barracks, about half a mile from the scene of the murder; whether relatives of the widow state that they saw members of the auxiliary forces on the morning after the murder carefully erasing all traces of footprints when they came with the county inspector to investigate the crime; whether he is aware that there was no charge made against the late Mr. Murphy and that he had no connection with politics; whether he can state who was responsible for censoring the evidence at the inquiry and deleting that portion of the evidence which pointed to the crime having been committed by the Crown forces; and what action, if any, he proposes to take in the matter?

Mr. HENRY: I have asked the Commander-in-Chief to have inquiry made into the very grave allegations contained in the hon. Member's question which I hope he will repeat at a later date. In the meantime it would be of material assistance to me if he could see his way to put me in possession of the evidence on which these allegations are based.

Mr. DEVLIN: Certainly. You can get that immediately.

Mr. O'CONNOR: (by Private Notice) asked the Chief Secretary whether his attention has been called to the murder of two brothers, Patrick and John Watters, in Dundalk, on Saturday last, 18th June; whether about 2 o'clock on that morning a party of armed men entered the licensed premises in Barrack
Street, Dundalk, occupied by Mrs. Watters, her three sons, and two daughters; whether they proceeded to the bedrooms occupied by Patrick and John, and despite the appeals of their mother and sisters, took the boys out of the house, barefooted, and clad only in shirts and trousers; whether they marched the boys in single file before them along the streets; whether Mrs. Watters states that as her sons walked along they were shot at several times and fell on the footpath; whether Patrick was then placed against a wall and shot dead, after which the other boy was taken about 20 yards further and also shot dead: and whether the Government intend to take any action to find the murderers and bring them to justice?

Mr. HENRY: I have not received the result of the Court of Inquiry in lieu of inquest on these men, but according to the police report they were taken from their beds at 2 a.m. last Saturday by two armed men who are stated to have worn caps and trench coats and were subsequently shot in the street a few yards from their house. Another brother was looked for by the murderers but succeeded in getting away. The police are pursuing their enquiries, but up to the present have made no arrests.

BALLSBRIDGE FIRE STATION, DUBLIN.

Mr. KILEY: 22.
asked the Chief Secretary whether he has yet received the further Report with regard to the charge brought against two cadets of intimidation at the fire brigade station, at Balls-bridge, Dublin?

Mr. HENRY: I have nothing to add to the reply which was given to the hon. Member on 9th June.

Mr. KILEY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that on the 4th June the Chief Secretary stated that a Report would be called for? Has that Report been received, and will it be communicated to the House?

Mr. HENRY: Yes, Sir, and if my hon. Friend will refer to the answer, he will find that the matter has been gone into.

Mr. KILEY: I have not seen the Report.

DESTROYED PROPERTY (COMPENSATION).

Captain W. BENN: 29.
asked the Prime Minister whether the question of
compensation for the destruction of property where the victims are innocent has been considered by the Cabinet?

Mr. HENRY: I have nothing to add to the reply given to my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to a question on this subject asked by the hon. and gallant Member on the 16th instant.

Captain BENN: In view of the constant assurances we have had that this question of compensation to innocent victims is being considered, may I ask the Leader of the House when we may expect a decision?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN (Leader of the House): If the hon. and gallant Gentleman had my work to do, he would understand my difficulty in fixing a definite date.

Mr. DEVLIN: Has this question ever been brought before the Cabinet at all?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I do not know that I am called upon to answer questions as to what has or what has not been brought before the Cabinet, and there certainly are many occasions on which I should decline to do so. Being, however, always desirous of satisfying curiosity where I can, I may tell the hon. Member that the answer to his question is in the affirmative.

Captain BENN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that it has been constantly stated in this House that this question is receiving Cabinet attention, and, as the matter merits something more than a flippant reference, can the right hon. Gentleman give me an answer.

Mr. DEVLIN: Since the right hon. Gentleman has been generous enough to give me an answer in the affirmative, may I ask what has been the decision of the Cabinet in this matter, and when that decision will be announced to the House?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: The decision of the Cabinet was that the time has not arrived to take a decision upon the question.

PASSPORTS.

Colonel Sir HILL CHILD: 30.
asked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the state of unrest existing in Ireland, he will consider the desirability of making
it obligatory on all persons entering and leaving Ireland to be in possession of passports?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: Yes, Sir. This question will be considered by the Government.

SHOOTING, THURLES.

Mr. RENDALL: 43.
asked the Chief Secretary what report he has received as regards the wounding of John Mase, a boy aged four, at Thurles, County Tipperary, on the 10th April?

Mr. HENRY: The Commander-in-Chief informs me that careful inquiries have been made into the wounding of this child, but that no definite information is forthcoming. There were no Crown forces in the neighbourhood on that day, and it can only be presumed that the boy was accidentally shot by rebels, who were said to have been in the locality on the date of the occurrence.

Mr. RENDALL: Does the right hon. Gentleman believe any further inquiry will be instituted in this matter?

Mr. HENRY: Yes; the police will continue their inquiries, and try to elicit further information.

Mr. RENDALL: I will put a further question down next week.

PRISONERS (TREATMENT).

Mr. C. WHITE: 44.
asked the Chief Secretary how many police are under arrest for the beating of prisoners, which was admitted at two separate courts-martial at Limerick lately; and when are they to be put on trial?

Mr. HENRY: The Court of Inquiry which is being held to obtain evidence has not yet reported.

Major MACKENZIE WOOD: When may we expect that report?

Mr. HENRY: Very shortly.

Mr. DEVLIN: Has not a promise already been given by the Chief Secretary that when hon. Members put down questions and they are told a report is not forthcoming, a copy will be sent to them, and whether that course will be pursued in future?

Mr. HENRY: I am not aware that my right hon. Friend made a promise, but
I will look it up and consult him. If he did, it will be adhered to.

Captain W. BENN: What action was taken, in the case referred to, of the man who beat the two prisoners who were tried at Limerick and were condemned by the words of the Judge Advocate?

Mr. HENRY: They were not condemned by the words of the Judge Advocate. They will be tried in the ordinary way.

Captain BENN: When will they be tried?

Mr. HENRY: The trial is proceeding at present.

AFFRAY, CASTLE CONNELL.

Mr. C. WHITE: 45.
asked the Chief Secretary whether any investigation was made at the Court of Inquiry into the killing of three men at Castle Connell into the charge that dum-dum bullets were used by the police on that occasion?

Mr. HENRY: No evidence in regard to the alleged use of dum-dum bullets by members of the Crown forces at Castle Connell was given at the Court of Inquiry, but this matter has since been carefully inquired into by the Commander-in-Chief, who is satisfied, as a result of his investigations, that the allegation is entirely unfounded.

Captain BENN: Is it not a fact that the Government refused to take the evidence of a well-known London surgeon, who had it in his possession?

Mr. HENRY: The well-known London surgeon was not prepared to go to Ireland.

Mr. DEVLIN: Was the well-known London surgeon prevented from going for fear of being murdered by the forces of the Crown?

SUICIDE (JAMES KANE), BELFAST.

Mr. BRIANT: 49.
asked the Chief Secretary whether any inquiry has been held into the shooting of James Kane, in Belfast, on the 7th March; and whether any arrests have been made?

Mr. HENRY: An inquest was held in this case and the verdict returned was one of suicide during temporary insanity.

CREAMERIES (CLOSING).

Mr. WATERSON: 53.
asked the Chief Secretary whether the closing of creameries is a punishment for the cutting up of roads and damage to bridges; if so, whether he is aware that such damage is usually believed to be the work of so-called flying columns; and whether, since the action of compulsory closing is severe and calculated to lead to disaffection through the penalisation of persons innocent of offence and is an injury to the economic position of the district affected, he will reconsider this policy?

Mr. HENRY: The circumstances in which creameries are temporarily closed in the martial law area were fully stated in my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary's reply to the hon. Member for Leith on 30th May. Before taking such action the military governor gives very careful consideration to all the local conditions.

Mr. WATERSON: In taking that action, is any preferential treatment given between one creamery and another in the same area, and if cases be brought before his notice, will he see into the matter.

Mr. HENRY: No preferential treatment is given. The creameries are not closed indiscriminately, but according as to whether they are used as meeting places for rebels.

Mr. WATERSON: Is any opportunity given to those in charge of the creameries to get rid of the stocks they may have in hand rather than let them perish?

Mr. HENRY: I must ask for notice.

Mr. HOGGE: 55.
asked the Chief Secretary how many creameries have now been closed by official order; how many of these are inside and outside the martial law area, respectively; and, in the latter case, by what authority the closing is, carried out?

Mr. HENRY: I am informed by the Commander-in-Chief that the number of creameries which have been closed by order of the military authority is 33. Fourteen of these are still under restriction, the remainder having been allowed to reopen. All these creameries are in the martial law area.

Mr. HOGGE: Could not the authorities in Ireland put someone in charge of the creameries to prevent, as he says, their
being made a meeting place for anyone, so that the industry itself could be carried on?

Mr. HENRY: It would involve a considerable military force, because the result would be that the places would probably be surrounded by a large number of rebels, and if there were only a few men in charge they might all be murdered. But I will submit the suggestion.

Mr. DEVLIN: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider the desirability of withdrawing the military from these areas where the creameries exist?

LOOTING, TRIM.

Major M. WOOD: 60.
asked the Chief Secretary whether he is aware of the affidavit of Major Wake, of the Auxiliary Division, summarised in the Press of 24th May, to the effect that immediately prior to his dismissal an inquiry was held by him into the Trim looting case; and whether it is to be understood that no such inquiry was in fact carried out by this officer?

Mr. HENRY: I have nothing to add to the reply given last Thursday to the hon. and gallant Member.

Major WOOD: Is not an inquiry going to be made into the very serious statements made by this officer?

Mr. HENRY: The trial of these men has taken place, a number having been convicted and a number acquitted. The court before which it took place could call for any documents it wished, arid they were supplied to it.

Major WOOD: That is not the question I asked. My question is about Major Wake and not about anyone who is under trial.

Mr. HENRY: The question I am asked is with reference to Major Wake in connection with the Trim looting case. It was the Trim looting case that was tried before a court martial and very fully investigated. Major Wake did not tender himself as a witness and the court did not call for any statement from him.

Major WOOD: 61.
asked the Chief Secretary how many of the five cadets arrested by General Crozier to stand trial in connection with the looting near Trim have now been released and how many
of the 26 whose services were dispensed with by him have now been reinstated; and whether sentence has yet been promulgated on any of those who were tried?

Mr. HENRY: The five cadets who were originally placed under close arrest have now been tried. One of them was acquitted and released and the other four are awaiting promulgation of sentence. Eighteen of the cadets whose services were dispensed with by General Crozier have been reinstated. The answer to the last part of the question is in the negative.

Major WOOD: 62.
asked the Chief Secretary whether on 23rd March, at an investigation into the looting at Trim, a statement was signed by General Crozier to the effect that certain documents and exhibits collected by him at his first investigation were then missing, in particular a declaration extracted at the point of the revolver from one of the victims of the looting; whether this statement of General Crozier's is still in existence; and, if not, whether he will have searching investigations made into its loss?

Mr. HENRY: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given by my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to a similar question by him on Thursday last. I cannot undertake to discuss the details of that evidence or to add anything to what he has already said on the subject.

Major WOOD: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the answer I got last Thursday did not deal with this question at all and that is why I have repeated it to-day? May I not have an answer?

Mr. HENRY: I have informed the hon. and gallant Gentleman that the case has already been disposed of by the Court. A subpoena was served on General Crozier to attend, but he sent a medical certificate that he was unable to attend.

Major WOOD: Does the right hon. Gentleman not realise the serious allegation contained in this question, that certain material evidence was destroyed?

Mr. HENRY: No material evidence was destroyed and no such allegation was made.

Captain W. BENN: How can the right hon. Gentleman make that statement when he refuses to examine General Crozier on the point?

Mr. HENRY: There was no refusal to examine General Crozier. It was General Crozier's own refusal.

Major WOOD: Is the right hon. Gentleman prepared to say General Crozier's statement was never in existence?

Mr. HENRY: As far as my information extends, it was not.

BICYCLES AND MOTOR CARS.

Sir W. BARTON: 65.
asked the Chief Secretary in how many counties in Ireland is the use of bicycles now prohibited; whether this prohibition affects all the inhabitants or merely those who are suspected of having Sinn Fein sympathies; and whether the same prohibition applies to the use of motor cars in the districts concerned?

Mr. HENRY: The use of motor cars, motor cycles, and pedal cycles between the hours of 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. in the martial law area was forbidden by a Proclamation on the 7th January last, and in certain districts cycles have been prohibited entirely. As regards counties outside the martial law area, the use of motor cars, motor cycles, and pedal cycles is forbidden during curfew hours in Carlow, Queen's County, Westmeath, Roscommon, Longford, Leitrim, Sligo, and the Dunlavin district of Wicklow. Similar prohibition is now to be enforced around Athlone. Pedal bicycles are totally prohibited in King's County and within a radius of 10 miles from Westport, Castle-bar, Foxford, and Gort.

SOUTHERN PARLIAMENT.

Mr. DEVLIN: 68.
asked the Chief Secretary whether the Southern Parliament of Ireland has been summoned by Proclamation for the 28th June; whether he is aware that more than half the elected representatives belonging to that Assembly are either in prison or on the run from Government agents; whether the Act setting up the Southern Parliament provides that, unless half the elected representatives comply with specified formalities and take their seats on the convocation of this Parliament, Crown Colony government will be substituted; whether, as the action of the Government in detaining in prison and otherwise inhibiting the majority of the Members elected to the Southern Parliament precludes the possibility of its meeting in accordance with
the provisions of the Government of Ireland Act, he will take steps to revoke the Proclamation summoning the Southern Parliament; and, if not, what action the Government propose to take in the circumstances?

Mr. HENRY: My right hon. Friend is in Ireland to-day, and the question raised by the hon. Member is now being considered by him on the spot. The hon. Member can rest assured that the arrangements for the meeting of the Southern Parliament will be communicated to this House without delay, and that the aspect of the case put forward by the hon. Member has not been lost sight of by His Majesty's Government.

Mr. DEVLIN: Does the right hon. Gentleman seriously tell the House and the country that they intend to summon a Parliament to meet, half of the Members of which are either in prison or being hounded by the Government, and is he going to call a Parliament together with the Senators elected by the peers refusing to act, and will he tell the House and the country when we shall have an end of this tragic farce?

Mr. HENRY: If any of the Gentlemen who are in prison through their own fault, and not that of the Government, will communicate to my right hon. Friend (the Chief Secretary) their wish to attend, I am sure he will make arrangements to enable them to do so.

Mr. DEVLIN: Will the right hon. Gentleman tell the House the steps he proposes to take to deal with the Senators of this Parliament who have absolutely declined to go there, and have so stated it to him, to the Prime Minister, and to all his other right hon. Friends.

Sir J. BUTCHER: Is it not a fact that the gentlemen who have been elected to the Southern Senate have only said that they will not go to Parliament if the Members of the Lower House do not go there?

Mr. DEVLIN: Would you like to go?

RAID, BALLYMENA.

Mr. DEVLIN: 69.
asked the Chief Secretary whether his attention has been called to a raid carried out on Friday last, 17th June, by the Ulster special police; whether he is aware that the
houses of practically all the Catholics in Ballymena were raided, the system being to place in each house at about 4 o'clock a.m. two or three special constables who, in most cases, separated the men and women in different rooms and kept them there until an officer arrived to carry out a search, which meant that in many cases people were kept in this position from 4 o'clock up to 9 or 10 o'clock; that in most cases the special constables adopted a very aggresive and provocative attitude; that in the case of one leading merchant the officer in charge took the keys from the assistant manager at his residence and, accompanied by two constables, entered the business premises, which contained valuable goods and securities, and remained there for almost a half hour without informing the owner that any raid was intended and unaccompanied by any representative of the owner; that in the case of a local hotel special constables who were not accompanied by an officer burst in the door and went through the hotel holding up every one in the house at the point of the revolver, and entered the room of an old lady about 80 years of age, a confirmed invalid, and ordered her to get out of bed; whether he can state who was responsible for this raid and for what purpose it was carried out; whether the instructions issued by the Government are that the district inspector of the Royal Irish Constabulary, as executive officer for the district, should be consulted prior to such raids; whether the district inspector in Ballymena was consulted about this raid; whether there has been a clear breach of discipline; and whether he will cause a full and searching inquiry to be made into the matter with a view to ascertaining who were the parties responsible for this attack on the liberties and rights of the Catholic population of Ballymena?

Mr. HENRY: I am having inquiry made into these allegations. I have had very short notice of the question, and shall be glad if the hon. Member will postpone it to a later date.

BURNING, KNOCKCROGHERY VILLAGE.

Mr. DEVLIN: (by Private Notice) asked the Chief Secretary whether his attention: has been called to the burning of the village of Knockcroghery, county Ros-
common, on Monday night last, 20th June; whether a force of armed and masked men arrived in the village in motor cars, and without giving the occupants of the houses an opportunity of dressing or removing any of their property, proceeded to burn the building; whether a fusillade of rifle and revolver firing was carried on during the operations, the inhabitants having to fly from their burning homes into the fields in their night attire; whether only three houses in the village escaped destruction; and what steps have been taken to bring to justice those responsible for this barbarous outrage?

Mr. HENRY: According to a police report which I have received, a party of armed and disguised men invaded the village of Knockcroghery about 1 a.m. on the 21st instant, and proceeded to burn a number of houses in the village. The occupiers of the houses were turned out in their night attire, and were not given any opportunity of saving any part of their property. The report does not state that a fusillade of fire was carried on during the destruction, but mentions that one man was fired upon though not injured. The inhabitants of the village are not able to identify any of the persons who committed these outrages, but the matter is being carefully investigated by the police and military authorities.

Mr. DEVLIN: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman inform the House what is the character of investigation that is taking place into this outrage?

Mr. HENRY: Inquiry has been made through the Royal Irish Constabulary and the military authorities in reference to this matter. The Royal Irish Constabulary are very actively engaged in trying to trace the perpetrators.

Mr. DEVLIN: As we have not the slightest hope that anything will come out of this investigation, may I ask, as he has now admitted, that a whole village has been practically destroyed by armed men in the dead of the night, whether he will appoint an impartial inquiry to investigate this matter and try and get at the truth about something in Ireland?

Lieut.-Colonel ARCHER-SHEE: Were there any of these assassinations or murders in the neighbourhood just before this occurred?

Mr. HENRY: No, not in that neighbourhood. General Lambert was murdered about 10 miles away, on the other side of Lough Ree.

Mr. DEVLIN: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman take steps to have some impartial tribunal appointed to inquire into this wholesale destruction of an Irish village? We have not been able to find the malefactors guilty of any of these crimes by these tribunals which he sets up, and we want to get at the truth about something in Ireland.

Mr. HENRY: It will be necessary to try and ascertain the perpetrators before there can be any question of an inquiry.

Oral Answers to Questions — LEAGUE OF NATIONS.

EXPENDITURE.

Major C. LOWTHER: 35.
asked the Prime Minister whether the Council of the League of Nations has approved a Budget for 1922 of expenditure of £1,388,000; and what will be the liability of Great Britain in this respect?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: The League's Budget for 1922 forms one of the items on the agenda of the Council Meeting now being held at Geneva, but I have no information as to whether the item has yet been taken. As pointed out, however, to the hon. and gallant Member in answer to his question of the 8th instant, the expenditure of the League is decided by the Assembly and not by the Council, and the Budget for 1922 would not, therefore, in any case, become operative until it had received the approval of the Assembly.

INTERNATIONAL LABOUR CONFERENCE.

Mr. PENNEFATHER: 36.
asked the Prime Minister if he has received a resolution from the Liverpool City Branch of the League of Nations Union expressing the opinion that the Conventions adopted at the International Labour Conference of the League of Nations should be submitted to Parliament as a competent authority; and whether he is in a position to announce a favourable reply?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: Yes, Sir. My right hon. Friend has received the resolution referred to. The point raised in the question was
dealt with fully by my right hon. Friend the Attorney-General in his speech of the 27th May, to which I would refer my hon. Friend. As I stated yesterday, we hope to arrange for a further discussion on the subject of these Conventions on Friday in next week.
May I at this point say what I ought to have said at once, that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister asked me to express to the House his regret that he is not present to answer these questions himself to-day. He has thought it right, on behalf of His Majesty's Government, to meet the King on his arrival at Euston.

Oral Answers to Questions — COAL INDUSTRY DISPUTE.

TRADES DISPUTES ACT.

Colonel NEWMAN: 37.
asked the Prime Minister whether his attention has been called to a condition of legalised lawlessness now prevalent in the coal-mining areas of Great Britain, which condition is made possible by the Trades Disputes Act, 1906; and, for the welfare and safety of the community, will the Government repeal or amend the Act in question?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: Nothing has so far occurred which would justify so drastic and provocative a remedy.

Mr. CAIRNS: Where is this legalised lawlessness in Britain, and what is it?

Colonel NEWMAN: Is amending an Act a very extreme form of action?

PUBLIC RELIEF, GLAMORGANSHIRE.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: 38.
asked the Prime Minister if he will direct an inquiry as to the total payments to miners in Glamorganshire from public sources in respect of unemployment pay, parish relief, feeding of children, or otherwise?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: No such payments are made to miners who are unemployed in consequence of the coal stoppage.

FOREIGN COAL (PRICES).

Sir WALTER de FRECE: 80.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department the present average pit-head price of coal in the chief coal producing countries of the world apart from our own?

Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME (Secretary, Overseas Trade Department): As the answer is long, and involves a number of figures, with my hon. Friend's permission, I will circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

The following is the answer: —

The available information regarding the pit-head price of coal in other countries is not sufficient to enable average prices for all coal raised to be determined, but the particulars below give some representative price quotations for U.S.A., France, Belgium, and Germany. It should be borne in mind that published market prices cover a great variety of grades, the relative importance of which is not fully known, and such prices do not usually include coal actually delivered under contract.

The various currencies are converted at the average rate of exchange in London for the period concerned.

United States of America. April, 1921.

Anthracite, stove, f.o.r. mine, 37s. 9d. to 41s. 6d. per ton.

Bituminous "run of mine," f.o.r. mine, Fairmont, West Virginia, 9s. 6d. to 11s. 6d. per ton.

(From "Commerce Monthly" issued by New York National Bank of Commerce.)

France. June, 1921.

Prices in the Nord and Pas de Calais districts, free on wagon at mine, are given at from 30s. to 60s. per ton avoirdupois, according to grade. A representative "run of mine" variety is quoted at 38s. —("Le Bulletin" newspaper, 12th Jane, 1921.)

Belgium. June, 1921.

Prices in the Mons district range from 28s. 6d. to 51s. per ton avoirdupois, according to grade. A representative "run of mine" variety "40 per cent. large" is quoted at 39s.—("L'exportateur Beige," 19th June, 1921.)

Germany. May, 1921.

The official maximum prices prescribed by the National Coal Union include for the Rhenish Westphalian district:

Anthracite best nuts, 21s. 6d. per ton avoirdupois.

Gas coal, 21s. 6d. per ton avoirdupois. Factory coal, 23s. 8d. per ton avoirdupois.

These prices include coal tax on turnover. It is understood that an increase in the rate of the coal tax above that in force when the report was made from which this information is derived has now been announced.

For the purpose of conversion to sterling the mark has been taken at 260 to the £.—(German "Official Gazette.")

WAGES, FOREIGN COUNTRIES.

Major KELLEY: 94.
asked the Minister of Labour whether he can state the percentage by which the wages of coal miners exceed those paid in 1914 to the same workers in Germany, France, Belgium, and the United States?

Dr. MACNAMARA: The latest statistics cover underground workers only, and the record ends with 1920. Obviously no useful comparisons can be drawn from, these figures unless they are viewed in close relation to the corresponding increases in the cost of living in the various countries. In Germany the increase in the wages of underground miners from 1914 to 1920, as given in the "Official Gazette" for 14th April, 1921, was 980 per cent. For France, there are no official statistics available. The French coalowners stated in November, 1920, that the wages of underground workers had risen by 363 per cent.; but the men appear to put the advance no higher than 267 per cent. In Belgium, the increase is stated in the Bulletin on the Economic Situation to be 381 per cent. The United States "Monthly Labour Review" in June, 1920, declared that the wages of miners of bituminous coal had risen by 98 per cent.

Lieut.-Colonel J. WARD: In the case of the German miners does not the increase depend to some extent on the rate of exchange?

Dr. MACNAMARA: Yes, and also, I understand, on the corresponding increase in the cost of living in these countries. Both must be taken into account.

EMERGENCY RESERVE STOCKS, MAXWELLTOWN.

Major McMICKING: 101.
asked the Secretary for Mines whether he is aware that three items amounting to £11s. 7d., part of the expense incurred by the local authority of the burgh of Maxwelltown in connection with the Coal Controller's
emergency reserve stocks, have been disallowed; and whether, seeing that the Coal Mines Department promised the local authority to pay all expenses of the emergency coal storage, he can explain why this undertaking has not been fulfilled?

The SECRETARY for MINES (Mr. Bridgeman): I have looked into this matter, and am satisfied that the claim was properly disallowed, and that there is no question of a breach of the undertaking to which my hon. and gallant Friend refers. I shall be glad to supply him, if ho so desires, with particulars of the items comprised in the claim and the reasons for their disallowance.

Major McMICKING: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the town council of the Borough of Maxwelltown were compelled to enter into the purchase and storage of the emergency coal, and that the Coal Controller's divisional officer informed the borough officer that all expenses incurred by the local authority in connection with the storage would be paid?

Mr. BRIDGEMAN: Yes, I am quite aware of all that, but I think the best thing would be if my hon. and gallant Friend would allow me to show him the actual details of the transaction.

GOVERNMENT OFFER.

Major Sir B. FALLE: 103.
asked the Secretary for Mines whether the £10,000,000 offered by the Government to the coalmining industry under certain conditions would have been devoted to assisting the coalowners to repair the damage done to the pits by the stoppage, or in what way would the money have been spent: and if he can make any statement thereon?

Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I need hardly assure my hon. and gallant Friend that there is no truth whatever in the suggestion referred to. The whole of the subvention offered by the Government would have been devoted to increasing wages above the rates at which they would otherwise have been payable. Not a penny of it would have gone into the pockets of the owners.

Mr. HARTSHORN: Is it not a fact that during the period when the mines would
be re-opened the deficit on the industry would be made good out of the £10,000,000?

Mr. BRIDGEMAN: The £10,000,000 would have been used only in those cases where the rate of wages would have been below that decided upon for the whole industry.

Mr. HARTSHORN: Is it not a fact that in ascertaining whether wages should be below or not, all costs of material, timber, clearing of falls and water would be taken into account, and would be shown in the balance sheet for the period?

Mr. BRIDGEMAN: If there had been anything more in one period it would have been made good in the next, under that arrangement.

STATE RECEIPTS.

Mr. ARMITAGE: 104.
asked the Secretary for Mines what sum of money the country has received from the coal mines since August, 1914?

Mr. BRIDGEMAN: The Excess Profits Duty from the coal mining industry since August, 1914, is not expected to exceed £25,000,000, after deduction of repayments and discharges. But, as stated in my reply to the hon. and gallant Member for Dulwich on 11th April, the net cost of control to the State is estimated at £16,250,000. The net benefit to the State is, therefore, less than £9,000,000.

Oral Answers to Questions — PEACE TREATIES.

WAR CRIMINALS (TRIAL).

Mr. BOTTOMLEY: 25.
asked the Prime Minister whether the Government has received a resolution passed by a meeting of British witnesses recently returned from the Leipzig trials, protesting against the manner in which their evidence was dealt with; and does he propose to make any representation to the German Government on the subject?

The SOLICITOR - GENERAL (Sir Ernest Pollock): I have been asked to reply. Certain representations have been received from some of the witnesses referred to, and from other quarters. It is proposed, as has been more than once stated, to consider, in conference with the other Powers concerned, so soon as the present series of trials at Leipzig is
concluded and full information is available, what further action shall be taken with reference to the War criminals. Meantime it is not proposed to make separate representations upon the matter to the German Government.

Mr. BOTTOMLEY: Will the hon. and learned Gentleman say, as he was present at the trials, whether he agreed to those representations?

Sir E. POLLOCK: Personally, I have not seen them.

Mr. BOTTOMLEY: 26.
asked the Prime Minister whether he will lay upon the Table of the House the Report furnished by the Solicitor-General respecting the Leipzig trials of alleged War criminals; and whether, having regard to the fact that the first British list, after allowing for those who have been permitted to escape, has been disposed of, he will afford the House an opportunity of expressing its opinion upon the results of the trials of the persons comprised in such list?

Sir E. POLLOCK: I have been asked to reply. It is not proposed to lay upon the Table the memorandum referred to, which was prepared for the information of the Cabinet. When the present series of trials at Leipzig has been concluded, and further information concerning them is available, this House will be afforded an opportunity of discussion, if that be the generally expressed desire of hon. Members. But it seems a little important that premature expressions of opinion should be avoided, especially, perhaps, in a matter in which the Allies are acting in common.

Mr. BOTTOMLEY: In the meantime will any further British list be sent to Leipzig for trial?

Sir E. POLLOCK: No further list will be sent, because, until the Allies in conference have decided what action they shall take, the list that has already been sent is, for this purpose, final.

Captain W. BENN: Can the hon. and learned Gentleman state when we may expect the decision of the Allies as to further action, in view of the derisory character of the sentences which have already been passed?

Sir E. POLLOCK: I have more than once said that, from the point of view of those who were in court, the sentences did not appear to be derisory. I must also say that, until the French cases have been tried—and they are awaiting trial—it is obvious that no meeting of the Allies would serve any useful purpose. I am not quite certain on what date the French cases will be tried, but I think it will be on the 29th of this month.

Sir J. BUTCHER: Could the hon. and learned Gentleman say how soon the report of the evidence and judgments in the Leipzig trials will be translated and made available for Members of the House?

Sir E. POLLOCK: As I have already said, I want to get that report as soon as possible, and I can assure my hon. and learned Friend that as soon as it is available—and all steps are being taken to make it available—it shall be obtained and translated.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: Does the hon. and learned Gentleman think that the present series of trials will be concluded in time for a Debate to take place in this House before it adjourns?

Sir E. POLLOCK: The French cases are part of the present series, and they ought to be taken, as I hope, by the 29th of this month. I assume, therefore, that there will be an opportunity for discussion.

Sir J. BUTCHER: Could the reports of the evidence and judgments in the British cases be translated, without waiting for the conclusion of the French cases?

Sir E. POLLOCK: I cannot say when the reports will be received, but I do not see why, in the British cases, the translation should be delayed until the French cases are tried, and I hope it will not be.

GERMAN REPARATION.

Captain Viscount CURZON: 70.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the total amount that has been received from Germany as reparation under all headings; whether in money or material; and how much more is outstanding?

The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Sir Robert Home): In the I Approximate Statement by the Repara-
tion Commission of deliveries made by Germany on Separation account as at 31st March, 1921, the estimated value of deliveries and cessions is given as rather over 6 milliards of gold marks. The figures for many items are, of course, provisional and subject to qualification. Further deliveries have since been made. Germany has also, in accordance with Article 5 of the Schedule of Payments, prescribed by the Reparation Commission and accepted by her, paid partly in cash and partly in three months' bills the 1 milliard gold marks therein provided for as the first two quarterly payments of the fixed sum of 2 milliards a year to be paid by her under Article 4 (1). The total Reparation debt was fixed by the Reparation Commission at 132 milliards of gold marks. The precise amount outstanding depends upon the Commission's decisions as to the value to be credited to Germany in respect of the deliveries and cessions made.

Viscount CURZON: Does the figure given include the value of all the ships handed over to this country?

Sir R. HORNE: It does not include the value of any ships that have not been sold. It includes only the value of ships actually sold. There is a certain number of ships which have not been sold.

Viscount CURZON: How do we get at the value of ships that have not been sold?

Sir R. HORNE: The value is not included in these figures. The value of the ships that have been sold but have not been paid for is not included. I do not pretend to put a value upon the ships that have not been sold. I should be very rash if I did, in the present condition of the shipping market.

MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT (INCOME TAX).

Mr. PENNEFATHER: 40.
asked the Lord Privy Seal if his attention has been drawn to statements which are being made to the effect that Members of this House can get round the decision of Parliament and evade Income Tax by claiming that their entire salary has gone in expenses; that this will throw a burden of over £200,000 on the taxpayer; that the Government has invited Members to claim
a refund of Income Tax paid by them during the last three years, and that Members of this House are therefore being given an unfair advantage over other taxpayers; whether all or any of these statements are based on misconceptions; and, if so, will he make a statement explaining the nature of the misconceptions?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: These statements are, I presume, based on a misapprehension of the law, for they are altogether incorrect. There has been no suggestion that the decision of Parliament should be evaded or that Members should be relieved of any liability to Income Tax lawfully due under the provisions of the Income Tax Acts. The exact reverse is the case. The decision was that Members should be left to establish individually their claims for the Income Tax allowances for expenses (in excess of the flat rate deduction of £100) in the ordinary legal course. Any person assessable under Schedule E in respect of the emoluments of an office or employment of profit is entitled to a deduction for expenses incurred and defrayed out of the emoluments of the office wholly, exclusively, and necessarily in the performance of the duties of the office. Members' salaries fall within this general principle of the law. In the second place any taxpayer may claim a refund in respect of such expenses or other legal rebates and allowances retrospectively for a period not exceeding three years. It is therefore the exact reverse of the truth to state that Members are being given a privilege not known to the law and not enjoyed by other taxpayers in like circumstances. On the contrary, Members of this House are being treated strictly in accordance with the law, and are receiving no privilege or right not conferred by law on all taxpayers similarly situated. In the past Members have often voluntarily forgone the exercise of their statutory rights and the Revenue has therefore received more than the law declared to be due. If they now exercise their rights the Revenue will receive all to which it is entitled under the law.

Lieut.-Colonel J. WARD: Can the right hon. Gentleman give any explanation of this complete hostility to any advantage being given to the poorer Members of the House by the wealthy Members?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: The hon. and gallant Gentleman has entirely miscon-
ceived the intention of my hon. Friend who put this question. It was not an attack upon his fellow Members but a desire to correct an aspersion upon Parliament which is wholly without foundation and which affects the honour of us all, rich or poor alike, and which is as mischievous as it is misinformed.

INCOME TAX.

Lieut.-Colonel ARCHER-SHEE: 73.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer under what statutory authority assessing authorities, in computing liability to United Kingdom Income Tax under the rules of cases 4 and 5 of Schedule D of the Income Tax Act of 1918, convert the income from foreign securities at the mean rate of exchange for the year, in view of the fact that the rates of exchange have been fluctuating between very wide values; and whether he can introduce provisions in this year's Finance Bill to convert moneys received abroad at a more equitable and accurate exchange by converting amounts at the average rate for the month in which they are received instead of the average rate for the year?

Sir R. HORNE: As was explained in the answer to my hon. and gallant Friend's question on this subject on the 14th instant it is understood to be the general practice of the assessing authorities in cases of the kind to which he refers to convert into sterling at the mean rate of exchange for the year. The Income Tax Acts do not give express directions in such matters of detail and the assessing authorities are not, of course, precluded from adopting some other basis for conversion into sterling where the facts of any particular case warrant a modification of the general practice. Moreover, any taxpayer who is dissatisfied with the Income Tax assessment upon him can appeal to the appropriate body of Income Tax Commissioners.

Lieut.-Colonel ARCHER-SHEE: Does not the right hon. Gentleman see that with the tremendous fluctuations of exchange to take an average over the whole year is very unfair to individual Income Tax payers, and that it will be more fair to take the average every month, and in order to do so regularly, would it not be
right to introduce some provision in the Finance Bill in order to give effect to it by statutory authority instead of following the rule-of-thumb method which at present exists?

Sir R. HORNE: My hon. and gallant Friend will understand that the authorities are in the service of the Commissioners and not of the Inland Revenue. Accordingly, I cannot control what they do; but it is always competent for any Income Tax payer to appeal to the Commissioners to have this conversion made at the rate of exchange by the month if he thinks it is better for him.

Oral Answers to Questions — MUNITIONS.

SURPLUS STORES (SALES).

Captain REDMOND: 75.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the estimated period it will take to dispose of the stock at end of period, amounting to £579,699 7s., under the heading of Total breaking-down statement for the year ended 31st March, 1920, appearing on page 14 of Ministry of Munitions Appropriation Account, 1919–20 (White Paper No. 102); and, in view of the fact that only £10,705 4s. was received for sales under this heading during the previous year, will he state what steps have been taken to effect more rapid sales?

The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Hilton Young): I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the answer given yesterday in which full explanation was made of the two figures referred to. The local receipts of £10,705 4s. were quite apart from the larger sales effected by the Disposal Board of which the stock mentioned formed part. Every effort has, of course, been made to effect rapid sales and expedite realisation.

Captain REDMOND: If the sales during this period amounted to only £10,000, how long will it take to dispose of the whole lot?

Mr. YOUNG: That is subject to conditions which we cannot possibly foresee.

NATIONAL FACTORIES.

Captain REDMOND: 76.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the item of £426,003 19s. 4d., described as balance transferred to the Ministry of Munitions account, being net cost of
deliveries during the year, in the Ministry of Munitions Appropriation Account, 1919–20 (White Paper No. 102), and appearing in the total production statement of national factories, page 14 thereof, is a portion of the loss in operating national factories?

Mr. YOUNG: I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the answer given yesterday, in which it was pointed out that the statement referred to is not a trading account, and the item mentioned is not a trading loss, but is the net cost of deliveries taken by the Ministry after charging contractors and other Government Departments for materials supplied.

SOUDAN LOAN.

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: 77.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the sum of £350,900 per annum has been received to date from the Soudan Government in respect of the guarantee given by the British Government under the Soudan Loan Act, 1919, or whether any charge in respect of guaranteed interest has fallen on the British Treasury; whether it is now anticipated that, owing to the under-estimation of the cost of the Blue Nile dam and Gezira schemes, the contingent liability of the British taxpayer will become an actual one; and, if so, to what extent?

Sir R. HORNE: I have no reason to suppose that the Soudan Government will not continue as hitherto to meet the interest payments as they fall due, without recourse to the British Government guarantee.

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: Does that mean that the Soudan Government have a surplus revenue over expenditure this year?

Sir R. HORNE: It means that the income which will ultimately be yielded upon the undertaking will be sufficient not merely to cover interest upon capital, at present expended, but also upon the capital that may be further required.

Earl WINTERTON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this undertaking has earned no money and is absolutely brought to an end; and is he aware that the Soudan Government has never had a surplus, but has had the greatest difficulty in making ends meet?

Sir R. HORNE: I did not say that they had a surplus. I said that the income they will make when the undertaking is in working order will be more than sufficient to pay the interest on capital expenditure, and on any further capital that may be required.

Earl WINTERTON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that it was announced the other day that the undertaking was held up altogether, and that it is not in a revenue bearing position? What is going to be done meanwhile?

Sir R. HORNE: I have not learned that there is any difficulty in raising the necessary capital.

Oral Answers to Questions — EDUCATION.

ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEACHERS.

Mr. R. RICHARDSON: 81.
asked the President of the Board of Education the number of trained certificated teachers at present employed in public elementary schools in England and Wales; the number of untrained certificated teachers; and the number of uncertificated teachers?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Herbert Lewis): On 1st March, 1921, there were employed in or in connection with elementary (including special) schools maintained by Local Education Authorities in England and Wales 116,512 certificated teachers and 35,180 uncertificated teachers. Of the certificated teachers 79,926 had been trained in English, Scottish or Irish training colleges, and 36,586 had not been so trained.

BURNHAM COMMITTEES (RECOMMENDATIONS).

Mr. LAWSON: 82.
asked the President of the Board of Education at what date he proposes to issue a statement defining the attitude of the Board to the findings of the various Burnham Committees?

Mr. LEWIS: I have nothing to add to the answer which I gave to the hon. Member for Pontypool on the 15th June.

Mr. HALLS: 83.
asked the President of the Board of Education if it is proposed to reduce the expenditure of the Board by 20 per cent. during the current financial year; and, if so, whether, in view of his statement that 65 per cent. of local educa-
tional expenditure is in respect to teachers' salaries, it will be possible to reduce the annual Education Vote by 20 per cent. without prejudice to the findings of the various Burnham committees?

Mr. LEWIS: The question how far and by what means it is possible to reduce the expenditure of the Board of Education is under consideration. I am not in a position to make any further statement at present.

Mr. LAWSON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the order to reduce expenditure by 20 per cent. is already hindering the work of building elementary schools? Is that the policy of the Board of Education?

Mr. LEWIS: I have already said that this matter is under consideration by the Board of Education, and that I am not at present in a position to give any further information.

INSPECTORS AND ATTENDANCE OFFICERS.

Colonel NEWMAN: 84.
asked the President of the Board of Education whether he can give any approximate total number of school inspectors and of school attendance officers at the present time; are the corresponding numbers for 1914 available; and can he give any percentage figure of the rise in salaries accorded to these education officials since 1914?

Mr. LEWIS: The number of Inspectors under the Board of Education is 361. The number on the corresponding date in 1914 was 379. Taking the average of the substantive salaries of these Inspectors there has been an increase of 15½ per cent. since 1914. I have no information as to the numbers and salaries of school inspectors and school attendance officers in the employment of local education authorities.

Colonel NEWMAN: Is it possible to get the information and give it to me as it is very important?

Mr. LEWIS: I am afraid that it would involve a very large amount of labour, and I doubt whether I should be justified in undertaking it.

Colonel NEWMAN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is a great number of these inspectors of all sorts, and that there is great cost to the rates in consequence?

Lieut.-Colonel NALL: Is it not a question for the local ratepayers to take up with their own authorities?

Mr. LEWIS: In 1914 there were 379 inspectors. At present there are 361.

Mr. G. TERRELL: Are not a great many of the duties performed by these inspectors in 1914 now being performed by other inspectors?

Mr. LEWIS: I am not aware that there has been any appreciable lessening of the work done by the inspectors of the Board of Education. On the contrary, I am aware that many of them are overworked at the present time.

Mr. RICHARDSON: Are not very many of the Government inspectors placed in such a position that they can scarcely make both ends meet?

EVENING CONTINUATION SCHOOLS.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: 85.
asked the President of the Board of Education whether his Department has received a. letter from the Chancellor of the Exchequer in reference to diminishing expenditure; and what decision he has arrived at regarding the guarantee of a proportion of the costs of evening continuation schools for next year?

Mr. LEWIS: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. The purport of the second part of the question is not clear to me, but the possibility of saving in the expenditure upon evening continuation schools as upon all other branches of the educational service will be considered.

Mr. LAWSON: Is it the policy of the Board of Education to build up evening continuation schools or to suppress those schools altogether in response to the requests of hon. Members?

Mr. SPEAKER: That does not arise. The hon. Member should put down a question.

MOTORISTS (POLICE SEARCH).

Mr. SWAN: 86.
asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he has received any complaints or reports, written or verbal, from motorists with regard to being held up and searched within the last month by police on roads leading to London?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir John Baird): The answer is in the negative.

Mr. SWAN: Were any Members of the Government held up, and, if so, was any incendiary literature found on them?

Mr. SPEAKER: I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman cannot answer that question.

COMMITTEE ON ADOPTION (REPORT).

Sir J. BUTCHER: 87.
asked the Home Secretary whether he has considered the Report of the Committee on Adoption; and whether he will soon be in a position to introduce legislation on the subject?

Sir J. BAIRD: The report of the Committee referred to, which was issued last month, is receiving consideration, but I am not yet in a position to make any statement as to legislation.

HOUSING (OFFICE OF WORKS).

Major PRESCOTT: 88.
asked the hon. Member for the Pollok Division of Glasgow, as representing the First Commissioner of Works, whether there has been any recent change of policy in connection with the housing schemes which the Office of Works is carrying out for local authorities; whether any of these schemes have been partially or wholly vetoed; whether the No. 3 form of contract has been adopted in any case; and if he will give the average cost of completed houses and the rent charged?

Lieut.-Colonel Sir J. GILMOUR (for the First Commissioner of Works): The policy in connection with the execution of housing schemes is determined by the Minister of Health, to whom I must refer by hon. and gallant Friend. It has been decided in some recent cases in which the Office of Works were asked to make preliminary surveys that the schemes should not be proceeded with. There is only one instance in which a scheme has proceeded on the basis of a time and materials contract, and this scheme is practically completed. Final costs cannot be given until the schemes are completed; but it is estimated on an analysis of the costs to date that the average building costs per house will vary
between £714 and £950 according to the scheme, the type of house concerned, and the period during which the houses were under construction. For information as to rents I must refer my hon. and gallant Friend to the Minister of Health.

WESTMINSTER HALL ROOF.

Lieut.-Colonel GUINNESS: 89.
asked the hon. Member for the Pollok Division of Glasgow, as representing the First Commissioner of Works, at what date the repairs to the roof of Westminster Hall were begun, and when they will be finished?

Sir J. GILMOUR: The repairs were begun in July, 1914, and, as far as can be foreseen, the work will be completed by the end of next year. If hon. Members wish to inspect the roof, I will do my best to make the necessary arrangements, though it is only possible to escort a very limited number at a time.

Mr. WATERSON: Has the hon. Gentleman received any deputation from hon. Members to exercise economy in this, matter?

Sir J. GILMOUR: No.

TELEPHONE SERVICE (STAMFORD ROAD SITE).

Lieut.-Colonel CROFT: 90.
asked the hon. Member for the Pollok Division of Glasgow, as representing the First Commissioner of Works, whether his attention has been called to the fact that land and houses in Stamford Road, Kensington, have been purchased for the purpose of national telephones at a price from £23,000 to £25,000 for the freehold, which price does not include compensation to leaseholders; whether he is aware that in the neighbourhood there are the Trafalgar Place and Southend sites, with a total area of 20,000 square feet, for which the price asked is £12,000; and whether he will take immediate steps to cause inquiries to be made into this matter with a view to saving a considerable sum of money?

Sir J. GILMOUR: Perhaps my hon. and gallant Friend will be so good as to refer to a reply given on the 2nd March. I should, however, like to reassure him
on the question of price, which I am glad to say is much lower than he indicates. In fact, taking into account the value of residual properties included in the Stamford Street site, the cost to the Government is approximately the figure he quotes for the Trafalgar Place site. The acquisition of the latter site would involve the demolition of residential property and the immediate eviction of the tenants.

Lieut.-Colonel CROFT: What is the amount of compensation to the leaseholders of the former site?

Sir J. GILMOUR: I must have notice of that question.

EX-SERVICE MEN (BUILDING TRADE).

Mr. HALLS: 96.
asked the Minister of Labour how many men, apart from those employed by the Office of Works, are now employed under the scheme for ex-service men in the building trade?

Dr. MACNAMARA: According to reports furnished by the master builders about 150 ex-service men are now employed by them under the scheme, apart from those engaged by the Office of Works. As I said yesterday, the continued stagnation in industry generally makes it quite impossible, even with the best of intentions, to make any great headway at present.

Captain GEE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that many of these men have been victimised by the building trades unions?

TRADE BOARDS.

Mr. BOWERMAN: 97.
asked the Minister of Labour whether the appointed members of the Grocery Trade Board have made a statement that in voting for the rates fixed by the Board they have felt obliged to keep in mind the capabilities of the least fortunately placed shops in the poorest districts of each area; and whether, seeing that the rates fixed by the Board for male porters over. 21 are less by 23s. per week than the rates paid by agreement between the National Union of Shop Assistants and certain London
firms, and of the lowness of the rates fixed by the Grocery Trade Board and of the many delays which have taken place in this matter, he is now prepared to confirm the rates fixed by the Trade Board?

Dr. MACNAMARA: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. With regard to the second part, I would refer my right hon. Friend to the replies which I gave yesterday on this matter. I would add that, according to my information, the rates fixed by the Grocery arid Provisions Trade Board for male porters in London are in some cases lower and in others higher than corresponding rates paid by voluntary agreement in this trade; in no case, however, is the difference as substantial as that suggested.

Mr. HAYDAY: 99.
asked the Minister of Labour whether he addressed a letter on the 7th April to the Waste Trade Board stating that he felt some hesitation in putting the rates fixed by the Trade Board into operation without giving the Trade Board further opportunity of considering the date, but, if the Board so recommended, he would be prepared, when the matter has been reconsidered by the Board, to make an Order forthwith by which the rates would become effective as from the date by which the Board consider that the position of the trade will be such as to enable the rates proposed to be paid throughout the trade; whether the Board have now addressed a communication to him asking that the rates should be put into effect as soon as possible; and whether he will now state the course he proposes to take?

Dr. MACNAMARA: The facts are as given by my hon. Friend. I feel it imperative to give special consideration to these rates, as in fact the anticipated revival of the trade has not been realised, and I am not yet in a position to announce my decision.

Oral Answers to Questions — POST OFFICE.

BRANCH OFFICE, LEICESTER.

Mr. WATERSON: 107.
asked the Postmaster-General the result of his inquiries into the possibility of providing facilities for transacting ordinary Post Office business at the Station Street Branch Office, Leicester?

Mr. KELLAWAY: The inquiries on the subject are not yet completed. I will write to the hon. Member as soon as I am in a position to do so.

KENMARE, COUNTY KERRY.

Mr. T. P. O'CONNOR: 108.
asked the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that the postal service to and from Ken-mare, County Kerry, has been totally dislocated since the 4th instant; and when it is intended to restore the service?

Mr. KELLAWAY: I am aware of the dislocation, which in this and other similarly disturbed districts in Ireland must continue until order is restored.

Mr. DEVLIN: When will that be?

CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: 109.
asked the Postmaster-General whether any conscientious objectors who were imprisoned during the War have been reinstated in the postal service; and, if so, whether any back pay has been granted to them?

Mr. KELLAWAY: Conscientious objectors who failed to secure exemption from military service and served a term of imprisonment, but were released to take up work of national importance under the Home Office Committee, and performed that work satisfactorily, have been reinstated in the Post Office in accordance with a decision of the Government which applies to the whole Civil Service. No pay has been allowed from the Post Office to these men in respect of any part of their absence from Post Office duties.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: Will the right hon. Gentleman say how many of these conscientious objectors are now employed in the Post Office?

Mr. KELLAWAY: I asked for that information this morning, and it was not available, but I will get it.

Lieut.-Colonel J. WARD: Will the time that these conscientious objectors were in prison, because they refused to serve or to defend the State, be counted for pension?

Mr. KELLAWAY: I cannot say. I would like to examine that.

Sir W. DAVISON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that hundreds of men
who served in the War have been refused employment by the Post Office?

Mr. SPEAKER: That point does not arise out of the question. It must be put on the Paper.

PARIS CONFERENCE.

GREECE AND TURKEY: SILESIA.

MR. CHAMBERLAIN'S STATEMENT.

Major-General SEELY: Is the Prime Minister in a position to make any statement regarding the visit of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to Paris?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: Yes. I am glad to have the opportunity, on behalf of my right hon. Friend, of making the following statement to the House:—
In default of a meeting of the Supreme Council which cannot for the moment be arranged, the Foreign Secretary went to Paris in order to exchange views with Monsieur Briand upon the principal questions which are at present concerning Great Britain and France, notably the position in the East and in Silesia. Prolonged and friendly conversations took place between them, and the Italian Ambassador joined the Conference when questions of Allied policy or Allied action were involved.
It was felt by all the parties to be desirable that a renewed attempt should be made to terminate hostilities in Asia Minor and to conclude a peace between Turkey and the Allies. With this object in view it was decided to send a telegram to the Greek Government, to which the assent of the Italian Government was given, offering the services of the Allied Powers.
The conviction was expressed in this communication that whatever might be the immediate result of a renewal of conflict between the Greek and Turkish forces in Asia Minor there was not to be found therein the prospects of any enduring pacification of the East or of a solution compatible with the real interests and ultimate capabilities of either party.
In these circumstances the Allied Governments informed the Greek Government that they felt they were only discharging an international duty as well as an obligation of friendship in stating that they were prepared to attempt the
task of conciliation if the Hellenic Government were disposed to place its interests in their hands. Should the Greek Government decide that it was not prepared to accept outside intervention or advice, the Allied Powers could not persevere in an action that would obviously be fruitless. In such a case the responsibility for the consequences of renewed struggle would rest upon the Greeks themselves. On the other hand, should the Hellenic Government decide in its own interests to accept the intervention of the Powers, the latter were prepared to state the terms upon which their assistance would be proffered, and, in the event of these being accepted, to approach the Turkish Government with a view to the immediate suspension of hostilities and to negotiations for the conclusion of peace.
The Greek Government were invited to return a prompt reply to this proposal. The three Allied representatives then proceeded to discuss the terms in question, and arrived at a general agreement as to the lines on which they would proceed. It would not be advisable to state these terms in detail at the present juncture, since a reply to the opening invitation to Greece is still awaited.
We have since heard that it will be considered at once by the Greek Council of Ministers, the President of the Council and the Minister of War being expected to return to Athens from Smyrna this evening.
Concerning Silesia, the local situation was exhaustively examined and approval was given to the scheme for bringing about a progressive withdrawal from the disputed area of the insurgents on the one hand and the German self-protection forces on the other, the Allied forces, which now amount to nearly 20,000 men, being responsible for the maintenance of order in the evacuated territory pending a decision on the future boundaries by the Supreme Council. It was decided to give every possible support to the Allied Commission in Silesia, both on the spot and by representations to the Governments at Warsaw and Berlin. Further with a view to expediting the ultimate solution, it was decided to invite the Commission to consider whether in view of the altered conditions they could now within a reasonable period of time draw
up a joint report in place of the divided reports which were submitted some weeks ago, and the help of technical officers to be attached to the Commission, if the latter so desired, was offered. In the event of neither of these courses being found practicable or convenient, the Allied Governments were prepared to-refer the matter to a technical Committee, sitting in London or Paris, in order to assist the Supreme Council in arriving at a final decision.
It was agreed that a meeting of the Supreme Council should be held at Boulogne in the course of next month, in order to consider this and other matters that await the decision of the Powers.
The Paris conversations were characterised throughout by a spirit of the greatest friendliness, and the intention of the Powers to act in close co-operation in both the subjects that came under examination was re-affirmed.

Lord R. CECIL: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether there is any truth in the statement that wholesale destruction has been wrought by the armed forces-in Silesia?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I have seen reports of destruction—I cannot say the extent of it—created on the one side or the other. It is lamentable and deplorable, and must prejudice the case of those who give way to such measures.

VOLUNTARY HOSPITALS (GOVERNMENT GRANT).

Colonel MILDWAY: (by Private Notice) asked the Minister of Health whether he can make any announcement as to the decision of the Government on the Report of Lord Cave's Committee with reference to voluntary hospitals?

The MINISTER of HEALTH (Sir Alfred Mond): The Government have decided, in view of the serious state of the voluntary hospitals, to ask the House to vote a Supplementary Estimate of £500,000 in aid of the deficits during the present year. This money will be under the control of a Commission and Committees recommended by the Cave Committee, and I am taking immediate steps to appoint the Commission. In view of the serious financial position of the country, the Government have decided
with regret that they cannot give effect to the full recommendation of the Cave Committee for a grant of £1,000,000. They confidently anticipate that, as they have done their part, voluntary effort will come forward and find the balance required, and thus maintain the root principle of the voluntary system.

Earl WINTERTON: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman, are we to understand that this money is going to be distributed by a Committee or Commission ad hoc, and not by any existing body.

Sir A. MOND: A Commission is recommended by the Cave Committee ad hoc, and the composition of the Commission is recommended by the Cave Committee. I propose that the Chairman should be the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health, Lord Onslow.

Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Will any conditions be attached to this gift of £500,000?

Sir A. MOND: Conditions will have to be attached undoubtedly. Means will have to be proved, and the position of the various hospitals ascertained. As I indicated, it is hoped that a voluntary effort will be made commensurate with the sum which the Government is proposing to grant.

Captain REDMOND: Are Irish voluntary hospitals to be included, or are we to understand that they are not to have any share?

Dr. MURRAY: And the Scottish hospitals?

An HON. MEMBER: Where is Wales?

Sir A. MOND: Hon. Members, who study the Cave Committee Report, will see that Scottish hospitals are, of course, included, and the Secretary of State for Scotland will have power to appoint a representative on the Committee. As regards the Irish hospitals, I do not think they were included in the scheme of the inquiry.

Mr. DEVLIN: Why were they not? Are they not doing the same humane work as the hospitals in England?

Sir A. MOND: If the Irish people like to set up a Home Rule Parliament, they can deal with this as with other questions.

Captain REDMOND: And pay £18,000,000.

Colonel MILDMAY: Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that private contributions to hospitals at the present moment are greatly in excess of what they were before the War, even in the present difficult circumstances?

Sir PHILIP MAGNUS: May I ask whether it is proposed that the grant of £500,000 will be conditional on a similar sum being obtained from private sources?

Sir A. MOND: I have already indicated that we expect a corresponding private effort to be made. I cannot lay down the whole scheme in an answer to a question, but I propose that the full scheme and the manner in which it is to be carried out, shall be placed before the House in due course.

ROYAL VISIT TO BELFAST.

Mr. RONALD McNEILL: May I ask the Prime Minister if His Majesty has got home safely?

The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Lloyd George): Yes, quite safely.

NEW MEMBER SWORN.

Rear-Admiral MURRAY FRASER SUETER, C.B., for the County of Hertford (Hertford Division).

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.

Sir D. MACLEAN: May I ask the Leader of the House what is the business for next week and what is the special urgency for the Motion standing in his name to suspend the Eleven o'clock Rule to-night, in view of the very late hours the House has been already called upon to sit?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: The business which we propose to take next week is as follows:
On Monday, the Unemployment Insurance Bill, Report and Third Reading; the Housing (Scotland—No. 2) Bill, continuation of the Debate on the Bill, as amended in Standing Committee; the Greenwich Hospital Bill; and the Indian Divorces (Validity) Bill, Committee and Third Reading.
On Tuesday and Wednesday we propose to take the Safeguarding of Industries Bill, as the first and second days allotted to the Committee Stage.
On Thursday, the Colonial Office Vote, in pursuance of the arrangement come to.
On Friday, the Emergency Powers Regulations and the discussion on the Washington Convention.
As regards to-night, I hope that it may not be necessary to sit after 11 o'clock, but it is absolutely necessary that we should take the Unclassified Services, Railway and Canal (War) Agreement Liquidation Vote, in order that the Government may be able to meet its liabilities under the Railway Agreement.

Captain W. BENN: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when the adjourned De-

bate on the setting up of the Estimates Committee will be taken?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I put the Motion down again for Monday, when it was adjourned last night. Monday's programme is a non-contentious one, and I hope that there will be time to resume the Debate on that day.

Lieut.-Colonel J. WARD: Before the right hon. Gentleman puts it down, will he get some kind of agreement with those who are opposed to it, so that they will not talk it out again?

Motion made, and Question put,
That the Proceedings of the Committee of Supply be exempted at this day's Sitting from the provisions of the Standing Order (Sittings or the House), notwithstanding anything in Standing Order No. 15."—[Mr. Chamberlain.]

The House divided: Ayes, 283; Noes, 53.

Division No. 192.]
AYES.
[4.7 p. m.


Adair, Rear-Admiral Thomas B. S.
Clay, Lieut.-Colonel H. H. Spender
Goff, Sir R. Park


Addison, Rt. Hon. Dr. Christopher
Clough, Robert
Gould, James C.


Adkins, Sir W. Ryland D.
Coats, Sir Stuart
Goulding, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward A.


Amery, Leopold C. M. S.
Cobb, Sir Cyril
Grant, James Augustus


Archer-Shee, Lieut.-Colonel Martin
Cockerill, Brigadier-General G. K.
Grayson, Lieut.-Colonel Sir Henry


Ashley, Colonel Wilfrid W.
Cohen, Major J. Brunel
Green, Albert (Derby)


Astor, Viscountess
Colfox, Major Wm. Phillips
Green, Joseph F. (Leicester, W.)


Atkey, A. R.
Conway, Sir W. Martin
Greene, Lt.-Col. Sir W. (Hack'y, N.)


Bagley, Captain E. Ashton
Coote, Colin Reith (Isle of Ely)
Greenwood, William (Stockport)


Baird, Sir John Lawrence
Cope, Major William
Greer, Harry


Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Cory, Sir J. H. (Cardiff, South)
Greig, Colonel Sir James William


Balfour, George (Hampstead)
Craik, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry
Gretton, Colonel John


Banbury, Rt. Hon. Sir Frederick G.
Curzon, Captain Viscount
Guinness, Lieut.-Col. Hon. W. E.


Barnes, Rt. Hon. G. (Glas., Gorbals)
Davies, Alfred Thomas (Lincoln)
Gwynne, Rupert S.


Barnett, Major Richard W.
Davies, Thomas (Cirencester)
Hacking, Captain Douglas H.


Barnston, Major Harry
Davies, Sir William H. (Bristol, S.)
Hamilton, Major C. G. C.


Barrand, A. R.
Davison, Sir VV. H. (Kensington, S.)
Harmsworth, C. B. (Bedford, Luton)


Beauchamp, Sir Edward
Dewhurst, Lieut.-Commander Harry
Harmsworth, Hon. E. C. (Kent)


Bell, Lieut.-Col. W. C. H. (Devizes)
Dockrell, Sir Maurice
Harris, Sir Henry Percy


Bellairs, Commander Carlyon W.
Doyle, N. Grattan
Haslam, Lewis


Benn, Sir A. S. (Plymouth, Drake)
Edge, Captain William
Hennessy, Major J. R. G.


Benn, Capt. Sir I. H., Bart. (Gr'nw'h)
Edwards, Major J. (Aberavon)
Henry, Denis S. (Londonderry, S.)


Bentinck, Lord Henry Cavendish-
Edwards, Hugh (Glam., Neath)
Herbert, Col. Hon. A. (Yeovil)


Bethell, Sir John Henry
Elliott, Lt.-Col. Sir G. (Islington, W.)
Higham, Charles Frederick


Betterton, Henry B.
Elveden, Viscount
Hilder, Lieut.-Colonel Frank


Bigland, Alfred
Erskine, James Malcolm Monteith
Hills, Major John Waller


Birchall, Major J. Dearman
Evans, Ernest
Hoare, Lieut.-Colonel Sir S. J. G.


Bird, Sir A. (Wolverhampton, West)
Falle, Major Sir Bertram Godfray
Hohler, Gerald Fitzroy


Blades, Sir George Rowland
Farquharson, Major A. C.
Holbrook, Sir Arthur Richard


Blair, Sir Reginald
Fell, Sir Arthur
Hope, Sir H. (Stirling & CI'ckm'nn,W.)


Borwick, Major G. O.
Fildes, Henry
Hopkins, John W. W.


Boscawen, Rt. Hon. Sir A. Griffith-
FitzRoy, Captain Hon. Edward A.
Hopkinson, A. (Lancaster, Mossley)


Bowyer, Captain G. W. E.
Flannery, Sir James Fortescue
Home, Edgar (Surrey, Guildford)


Boyd-Carpenter, Major A.
Ford, Patrick Johnston
Home, Sir R. S. (Glasgow, Hillhead)


Breese. Major Charles E.
Foreman, Sir Henry
Hunter, General Sir A. (Lancaster)


Bridgeman, Rt. Hon. William Clive
Forestier-Walker, L.
Hurd, Percy A.


Brittain, Sir Harry
Forrest, Walter
Hurst, Lieut.-Colonel Gerald B.


Britton, G. B.
Foxcroft, Captain Charles Talbot
Jackson, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. F. S.


Broad, Thomas Tucker
Fraser, Major Sir Keith
James, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. Cuthbert


Bruton, Sir James
Frece, Sir Walter de
Jameson, John Gordon


Buckley, Lieut.-Colonel A.
Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E.
Jephcott, A. R.


Bull. Rt. Hon. Sir William James
Gange, E. Stanley
Johnstone, Joseph


Burdon, Colonel Rowland
Ganzoni, Sir John
Jones, Sir Evan (Pembroke)


Burgoyne, Lt.-Col. Alan Hughes
Gardiner, James
Jones, J. T. (Carmarthen, Llanelly)


Burn, Col. C. R. (Devon, Torquay)
Gardner, Ernest
Joynson-Hicks, Sir William


Butcher, Sir John George
Geddes, Rt. Hon. Sir E. (Camb'dge)
Kellaway, Rt. Hon. Fredk. George


Cautley, Henry Strother
Gee, Captain Robert
Kidd, James


Cecil, Rt. Hon. Evelyn (Birm., Aston)
George, Rt. Hon. David Lloyd
King, Captain Henry Douglas


Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. A. (Birm., W.)
Gibbs, Colonel George Abraham
Knight, Major E. A. (Kidderminster)


Cheyne, Sir William Watson
Gilmour, Lieut.-Colonel Sir John
Lambert, Rt. Hon. George


Child, Brigadier-General Sir Hill
Glyn, Major Ralph
Lane-Fox, G. R.


Law, Alfred J. (Rochdale)
Norris, Colonel Sir Henry G.
Stephenson, Lieut.-Colonel H. K.


Lewis, Rt. Hon. J. H. (Univ., Wales)
Oman, Sir Charles William C.
Stevens, Marshall


Lindsay, William Arthur
Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William
Stewart, Gershom


Lister, Sir R. Ashton
Palmer, Major Godfrey Mark
Sturrock, J. Leng


Lloyd-Greame, Sir P.
Palmer, Brigadier-General G. L.
Taylor, J.


Locker-Lampson. G. (Wood Green)
Parker, James
Terrell, George (Wilts, Chippenham)


Locker-Lampson, Com. O. (H'tingd'n)
Parry, Lieut.-Colonel Thomas Henry
Terrell, Captain R. (Oxford, Henley)


Lorden, John William
Pearce, Sir William
Thomas, Sir Robert J. (Wrexham)


Loseby, Captain C. E.
Pease, Rt. Hon. Herbert Pike
Thomas-Stanford, Charles


Macdonald, Rt. Hon. John Murray
Pennefather, De Fonblanque
Tickler, Thomas George


Mackinder, Sir H. J. (Camlachie)
Percy, Charles (Tynemouth)
Townley, Maximilian G.


McLaren, Hon. H. D. (Leicester)
Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)
Townshend, Sir Charles Vere Ferrers


McLaren, Robert (Lanark, Northern)
Pilditch, Sir Philip
Tryon, Major George Clement


M'Lean, Lieut.-Col. Charles W. W.
Pollock, Sir Ernest Murray
Waddington, R.


Macleod, J. Mackintosh
Pownall, Lieut.-Colonel Assheton
Wallace, J.


McMicking, Major Gilbert
Pratt, John William
Walters, Rt. Hon. Sir John Tudor


Macnamara, Rt. Hon. Dr. T. J.
Prescott, Major W. H.
Ward, Col. J. (Stoke upon Trent)


McNeill, Ronald (Kent, Canterbury)
Purchase, H. G.
Ward, Col. L. (Kingston-upon-Hull)


Mallalieu, Frederick William
Rae, H. Norman
Ward, William Dudley (Southampton)


Malone, Major P. B. (Tottenham, S.)
Raeburn, Sir William H.
Wheler, Col. Granville C. H.


Marriott, John Arthur Ransome
Randles, Sir John Scurrah
White, Col. G. D. (Southport)


Martin, A. E.
Raw, Lieutenant-Colonel Dr. N.
Williams, C. (Tavistock)


Matthews, David
Rees, Sir J. D. (Nottingham, East)
Williams, Lt.-Col. Sir R. (Banbury)


Meysey-Thompson, Lieut.-Col. E. C.
Roberts, Rt. Hon. G. H. (Norwich)
Williamson, Rt. Hon. Sir Archibald


Mildmay, Colonel Rt. Hon. F. B.
Roberts, Samuel (Hereford, Hereford)
Willoughby, Lieut.-Col. Hon. Claud


Mitchell, William Lane
Roberts, Sir S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)
Wills, Lt.-Col. Sir Gilbert Alan H.


Molson, Major John Elsdale
Robinson, S. (Brecon and Radnor)
Wilson, Col. M. J. (Richmond)


Mond, Rt. Hon. Sir Alfred Moritz
Robinson, Sir T. (Lanes., Stretford)
Wilson-Fox, Henry


Moore-Brabazon, Lieut.-Col. J. T. C.
Rutherford, Colonel Sir J. (Darwen)
Winfrey, Sir Richard


Morden, Col. W. Grant
Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)
Winterton, Earl


Morison, Rt. Hon. Thomas Brash
Samuel, Rt. Hon. Sir H. (Norwood)
Wise, Frederick


Morrison-Bell, Major A. C.
Sanders, Colonel Sir Robert Arthur
Wood, Hon. Edward F. L. (Ripon)


Munro, Rt. Hon. Robert
Sassoon, Sir Philip Albert Gustavo D.
Wood, Sir H. K. (Woolwich, West)


Murray, Hon. A. C. (Aberdeen)
Scott, A. M. (Glasgow, Bridgeton)
Wood, Major Sir S. Hill-(High Peak)


Murray, C. D. (Edinburgh)
Seager, Sir William
Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L.


Murray, Hon. Gideon (St. Rollox)
Seely. Major-General Rt. Hon. John
Yate, Colonel Sir Charles Edward


Murray, John (Leeds, West)
Shaw, Hon. Alex. (Kilmarnock)
Yeo, Sir Alfred William


Nail, Major Joseph
Shaw, Capt. William T. (Forfar)
Young, E. H. (Norwich)


Neal. Arthur
Simm, M. T.
Young, Sir Frederick W. (Swindon)


Newman, Colonel J. R. P. (Finchley)
Smithers, Sir Alfred W.
Younger, Sir George


Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)
Sprot, Colonel Sir Alexander



Nicholl, Commander Sir Edward
Stanier, Captain Sir Beville
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Nicholson, Reginald (Doncaster)
Stanley, Major Hon. G. (Preston)
Colonel Leslie Wilson and Mr.


Nicholson, William G. (Petersfield)
Stanton, Charles Butt
McCurdy.


Norman, Major Rt. Hon. Sir Henry
Steel, Major S. Strang



NOES.


Asquith, Rt. Hon. Herbert Henry
Halls, Walter
Rendall, Athelstan


Barker, G. (Monmouth, Abertillery)
Hartshorn, Vernon
Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)


Barnes, Major H. (Newcastle, E.)
Hayday, Arthur
Robertson, John


Barton, Sir William (Oldham)
Hayward, Evan
Rose, Frank H.


Benn, Captain Wedgwood (Leith)
Hodge, Rt. Hon. John
Royce, William Stapleton


Bottomley, Horatio W.
Hogge, James Myles
Sueter, Murray Fraser


Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W.
Irving, Dan
Swan, J. E.


Briant, Frank
Kelley, Major Fred (Rotherham)
Thomas, Brig.-Gen. Sir O. (Anglesey)


Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)
Kenyon, Barnet
Thomson, T. (Middlesbrough, West)


Cairns, John
Kiley, James Daniel
Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton, E.)


Cape, Thomas
Lowther, Major C. (Cumberland, N.)
Waterson, A. E.


Cecil, Rt. Hon. Lord R. (Hitchin)
Maclean, Rt. Hon. Sir D. (Midlothian)
Wedgwood, Colonel Josiah C.


Davies, Major D. (Montgomery)
MacVeagh, Jeremiah
White, Charles F. (Derby, Western)


Devlin, Joseph
J Morgan, Major D. Watts
Williams, Aneurin (Durham, Consett)


Entwistle, Major C. F.
Murray, Dr. D. (Inverness & Ross)
Wood, Major M. M. (Aberdeen, C.)


Galbraith, Samuel
Myers, Thomas



Gillis, William
O'Connor, Thomas P.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Glanville, Harold James
Raffan, Peter Wilson
Mr. Lawson and Colonel Penry


Graham, W. (Edinburgh, Central)
Redmond, Captain William Archer
Williams.

OVERSEAS TRADE (CREDITS AND INSURANCE) AMENDMENT BILL.

Reported, with an Amendment [Title amended], from Standing Committee A.

Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

Minutes of the Proceedings of the Standing Committee to be printed.

Bill, as amended (in the Standing Committee), to be taken into consideration upon Tuesday next, and to be printed. [Bill 147.]

UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE BILL.

Reported, with Amendments, from Standing Committee C.

Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

Minutes of the Proceedings of the Standing Committee to be printed.

Bill, as amended (in the Standing Committee), to be taken into consideration upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 148.]

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.

That they have agreed to,—

Housing Bill,

Wrexham and East Denbighshire Water Bill, with Amendments.

Preston's Divorce Bill [Lords],—That they communicate Minutes of Evidence and Proceedings taken upon the Second Reading of Preston's Divorce Bill [Lords], as desired by the Commons, with a request that the same may be returned.

HOUSING BILL.

Lords Amendments to be considered To-morrow, and to be printed. [Bill 149.]

CONSOLIDATION BILLS.

Report from the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills, in respect of the Education (Consolidation) Bill [Lords] (pending in the Lords), brought up, and read;

Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

Orders of the Day — SUPPLY.

[FIFTEENTH ALLOTTED DAY.]

Considered in Committee.

[Mr. JAMES HOPE in the Chair.]

CIVIL SERVICES ESTIMATES AND SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES, 1921–1922. [Progress.]

CLASS II.

CABINET OFFICES.

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £42,589 (including a Supplementary sum of £6,050), be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1922, for the Salary of the Minister without portfolio, and Salaries and Expenses of the Cabinet Offices and of the Committee of Imperial Defence, including the cost of preparation of War Histories."—[Note.— £25,000 has been voted on account.]

The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Lloyd George): Perhaps hon. and right hon. Members will allow me to apologise for my inability to answer questions to-day, but I felt sure that they would permit me, as the head of the Government, to greet their Majesties on their return from their very successful mission in Ireland. Never has the Throne rendered greater or finer service to the Empire, and I am sure we shall all felicitate them on the triumphant success of their visit. I may state that both the King and the Queen are very delighted with the wonderful and enthusiastic reception which they received from all classes in the North of Ireland.
I rise to move the Motion which was read from the Chair. Let me say at the outset that, when the Government came to the conclusion, after some reflection, that it was necessary for some time to continue the post of Minister without Portfolio, I need hardly say it was done from no profligate desire to squander the taxpayers' money. It was because we felt that it was impossible efficiently to discharge the very varied and burdensome duties which are cast upon Ministers in these days without having that measure of assistance at least. We fully realise that when a Vote of this kind is challenged, it is easy to excite prejudice
in a community which is naturally very anxious about its heavy burdens. The burdens are colossal, and whatever anyone may say about the conduct of the Government, and whatever proposals may be put forward, owing to the fact that we have a gigantic National Debt, and that the cost of everything has gone up, the burden must necessarily be a heavy one. Therefore, whenever any item of this kind is singled out, especially when it involves the salary of any individual, whether a Minister or an official, it is very easy in a community so crushed with burdens to excite a good deal of prejudice and hostility. We fully realise that, and knowing it, the Government certainly would not have undertaken the responsibility of continuing the office up to the present had it not been that they felt it was quite impossible to discharge the duties which are cast upon them without getting that assistance, at any rate for some time. We know perfectly well that when there are great issues shaking the country, those issues are very apt to be fought out on small incidents. That is a historical truth — something which appears insignificant, as £5,000 of course is, to the enormous burden of the expenditure. We also know that in the past— and it will be just the same in the future—-when the struggle comes, it is apt to break out upon a very small and comparatively insignificant incident. This is the only question which I am perfectly certain the House of Commons will decide—the House of Commons will, I am sure, rise above any question of personal prejudice, and act worthily of its great traditions in that respect, and examine the proposition upon the only grounds upon which it can either be justified or attacked, namely, whether we were right in coming to the conclusion that, under present conditions, it was necessary that there should be a Minister of this kind.
It is no use quoting pre-War times. These are not pre-War times. The country has not returned to normal. Whatever any Government may do, it would not return to normal immediately, and it would not have returned to normal whatever anyone could have done. There is no country in the world that has returned to normal conditions. I wonder whether Members realise the strain there is upon Ministers in these days. I have been a Member of four Administrations,
two of them before the War. There are Members of the present Administration who have had longer experience than I have, and, without exception, they all tell me that there has never been anything to compare with the work which is cast upon Ministers, or with the magnitude or anxiety of the work which they have to discharge. In the old days —good old days—there used to be one Cabinet a week. It is true of every Government. I am not referring merely to the Government of which I am a Member. I made inquiries about the previous Governments, and there was just about one Cabinet a week on an average; there was a long vacation; there were, of course, meetings of Ministers to confer on matters of inter-departmental importance; and there were occasionally Cabinet committees, but there was nothing which is comparable to the present time.
There have been this year 52 Cabinet meetings, a large number of meetings of Ministers, conferences upon matters affecting their Departments, 119 meetings of Cabinet committees; there have been over 80 sittings of the Supreme Council; and, if the Committee will take the meetings which have been held of all kinds at which Ministers are involved, there are something like 290 meetings for 134 working days. There was never anything comparable to that in the pre-War period. In addition Ministers have to discharge their Departmental functions; they work longer, they work later, and they work earlier; and I venture to say that we have to work harder. I am not putting that in disparagement of our predecessors, or of ourselves in pre-War days, but the necessity is upon us, and we have to do it. In those circumstances, it is idle to compare pre-War periods with present conditions.
In France, since the present Government came into power here in this country, there have been seven Cabinets, and there have been five in Italy. They are rarely the same men. There are no men in Europe who have had the same continual strain, and I want the House to bear all this in mind. We, therefore, have had to resort to the expedient of calling in during the War three or four Ministers without Portfolios. The War Cabinet consisted of men without Portfolios, and why? It was because it was discovered that men who had got great departmental
duties to discharge could not possibly supervise the general direction of the War. After the War, we had to keep one Minister without Portfolio. There was first of all my right hon. Friend the Member for the Gorbals Division of Glasgow (Mr. G. Barnes). He very largely devoted himself to inter-departmental questions which affected the industrial situation. As the Committee will readily realise, there are many questions which belong to three, four, five, or six Departments, and it was found necessary to have a Minister, who had no departmental responsibility and no departmental bias, to coordinate the various activities. He worked hard; he worked so hard that he had a serious breakdown. No Minister with a Department worked harder than the Minister without Portfolio. He was succeeded by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War (Sir Laming Worthington-Evans). He was Chairman and member of a very large number of committees, but in the main he devoted his activities to the settlement of questions relating to the German indemnity, to questions associated with Home Rule —especially the financial side of it—and to questions affecting unemployment. No Minister worked harder than he did in connection with these questions or more successfully.
I say without any hesitation that it would have been quite impossible for the Government to have discharged its obligations and its responsibilities to Parliament and to the country had we not had at our disposal a Minister of that kind, who could devote his mind exclusively to questions of this character. Then my right hon. Friend (Sir L. Worthington-Evans) was made Secretary for War, and we weighed very carefully the desirability of bringing the Ministry without Portfolio to an end. I can assure the Committee that we should have done so had we not found that under the conditions which then existed it was quite impossible for the Cabinet to discharge its functions without having the assistance of a Minister who was free from departmental responsibility, and who could devote his time to five or six questions which were then weighing with the public, with Parliament, and with the Government itself.
There has been a good deal of talk about bureaucracy. The country is naturally
very suspicious of anything in the nature of bureaucratic Government—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"]—and rightly so. I am not in the least reflecting upon the very able, painstaking, and conscientious men who constitute the bureaucracy of this country. I do not believe there is a finer, an abler, or a more honest body of men in the world than the British Civil Service. At the same time, their minds are naturally concentrated upon their Departments, each upon the task of his Department. Their whole lives are devoted to thinking out the problems of their Department. In these circumstances, there is always a natural disposition to exaggerate those tasks, and not to bear in mind the relation of the departmental demand to the total demands upon the energies and resources of the country. That is, of course, one of the tendencies of the bureaucracy which ought to be checked and guarded against. They are not in touch with public opinion. They are not in touch with Parliament. There are only two checks upon the activities of the bureaucracy, one of which is Parliament. The bureaucracy is not in touch with Parliament. The only real check upon bureaucracy is the political Minister who is in touch with Parliament and with public opinion. The over-burdened Minister means a Minister who has not got the necessary time to look after the whole of these problems, and the bureaucratic spirit, disposition and policy obtains an ascendency which they otherwise would not get. I ask the Committee to remember that they might very well save £5,000, and in the act of saving £5,000, might lose £100,000. Because the Minister knows that he has to face the House of Commons. The House of Commons knows it has got to face the taxpayer. Therefore, when the Minister comes to examine projects which and put in front of him, he does it with the full knowledge of what is the public temperament and the public disposition.
The Government came to the conclusion that, for the time being—I will come to the question of time later—for the time being, it would be quite impossible to carry on the tasks of Government without having, at any rate for a short period, a Minister without Portfolio. My right hon. Friend the present Minister without Portfolio — [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"]—I shall have a word to say about him personally later—is Chairman of four important Cabinet Committees,
two of them discharging tasks which Parliament forced upon the Government —one of them a most important and complicated one, as I happen to know by experience in the past, as Chancellor of the Exchequer. I refer to that which deals with local taxation. Parliament pressed it upon the Government, and insisted upon our examining the whole of that question. My right hon. Friend is Chairman of that Committee. It is all very well for my hon. and learned Friend opposite to smile—

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I was not smiling at the right hon. Gentleman; it was at someone behind me.

The PRIME MINISTER: I can assure the Committee that this is one of the most complicated tasks that any Minister could have. I have been through it many times in the past. It is a most baffling task, and one of the most necessary. There are two or three other Committees, connected with unemployment and other questions. The right hon. Gentleman is also a Member of six other Committees. If the Government were at this moment deprived of the services of the Minister without Portfolio I do not know what other Minister would find time to deal with these matters. I do not know any one who would have time to devote to them. Therefore, until these tasks are discharged, I do not see how it is possible for the Government to take the responsibility of informing the House of Commons that it is prepared to dispense with the services of the Minister without Portfolio.
During the present Session—at this moment—there are very great questions which are engaging the attention of Ministers. There is the great industrial struggle, probably the greatest we have ever witnessed. There is that very important Conference sitting almost daily in Downing Street, one of the most important Imperial Conferences that the Empire has ever witnessed. I hope it will achieve very great and beneficent results. There are questions arising out of the German and Turkish Treaties. There is the very anxious problem of unemployment. These, I agree, are temporary questions. I hope this industrial conflict —I do not want to say a word which would excite any unfair hopes, but I hope it is passing away. The Imperial Conference will be over shortly. I am very
hopeful that the problems arising out of the German and Turkish situation will be liquidated in the course of a very short time. There are certain symptoms which I have observed, and from certain facts which have been brought to my attention, I am very hopeful that the condition of trade, the present distressing condition, is merely a temporary one, and that we shall in a very short time see a very substantial improvement. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] Certainly I am very hopeful of that happening.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: What about the Safeguarding of Industries Bill?

The PRIME MINISTER: That is the information which I get from reliable sources. During the present Session of Parliament, when Ministers have all the responsibility and anxieties, it would be quite impossible to dispense with the services of a Minister who is taking off our shoulders the consideration of five or six very important problems, for which no other Minister at the present moment could be spared.
I come to the question of time. I have always stated to the Committee that we only regarded this appointment as a temporary one. I do not mean to say that no Government will ever summon a Minister without Portfolio to their assistance. That would be binding our successors as well as myself in a way that I am perfectly certain no House of Commons would ever ask a Minister to commit himself. I am now solely on the question of a sum of money for this particular purpose. I shall invite the House of Commons to-day to vote only a sum of money that will enable us to retain and pay for the services of the Minister without Portfolio until the end of the present Session. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear! hear!" and cries of "Saved! saved!"] I am very glad to see how hon. Members like that.

Mr. BOTTOMLEY: They expected it.

The PRIME MINISTER: My hon. and gallant Friend (Lieut.-Colonel Guinness) has a Motion on the Paper to reduce the sum, I think, by £2,000. That is not quite enough. If I might respectfully suggest to him, instead of moving a reduction of £2,000, he should move a reduction of £2,500. I could vote for that. Otherwise it might be my painful duty to go into the Lobby against him.
Let me now say a word about my right bon. Friend (Dr. Addison). I am perfectly certain that the vast majority of Members of the House are not moved by any feelings of prejudice against him. I know that his unfortunate interest in health has excited a good deal of prejudice. He was rather too anxious to build houses! But let me say this about my right hon. Friend. The House, I I know, is a generous Assembly—I know that well—and it will bear in mind that the activities of my right hon. Friend in relation to housing came at the worst time for any Minister. Labour and material were more expensive than they had ever been, and more difficult to procure. All that has to be borne in mind. I am going to say more than that. I am here to make a defence. I think this Minister has been very unfairly assailed. I should like to say another word about my right hon. Friend. I have had experience of him when he was my Under-Secretary at the Ministry of Munitions. There has been a great deal of hunting for little expenditure here and there for which he has been responsible, but I have not seen a word of generous recognition of what he did to cut down expenditure when he was Under-Secretary to the Ministry of Munitions. I do not know whether the House of Commons is aware that he was mainly responsible for the great system of costings which reduced—I have this upon the authority of the accountants who investigated it—the cost of the provision of munitions, first at the Ministry of Munitions, and afterwards at the Admiralty and the War Office, by hundreds of millions. And now when there is an attack made upon him in the interests of economy I am bound to say—

Dr. MURRAY: Why did you kick him downstairs?

The PRIME MINISTER: I am going to give the House of Commons the facts. When he became Under-Secretary to the Ministry of Munitions, we set up national Factories, and we discovered what a shell cost. The first thing the right hon. Gentleman discovered was that the contract prices of the War Office which we took over—[Interruption]—I am entitled to make this statement, and I propose to make it—the contract price paid for shells was 22s. 6d. per 18-pounder. My right hon. Friend found that it could be done at nearly half the cost.

Mr. DEVLIN: And still you sacked him.

The PRIME MINISTER: Our 4.5 shells were costing 54s., and he found that they could be produced for 29s. Six-inch shells were costing 92s. as the War Office price, but he found that they could be produced at 63s. Eight-inch shells were costing 190s., and he found that they could be produced at 170s. The first thing my right hon. Friend did was to insist upon new contracts being entered into. The old War Office prices were broken, new prices were set up, and the saving on shells alone, as a result of that breaking of the prices by this costings system, was £90,000,000. I will carry it a little further. The same system of costings for which my right hon. Friend was responsible—

Earl WINTERTON: Why was he not made Chancellor of the Exchequer?

The PRIME MINISTER: I do not see why my Noble Friend should dislike these facts.

Earl WINTERTON: He would have saved us a great deal of money.

The PRIME MINISTER: If I may say so, my Noble Friend is not an ungenerous man, and when somebody renders a service to the State, I think he would be the first to acknowledge that if there be a great service rendered to the State, this is the place to recognise it. The system of costings was applied to every other expenditure, with the result that there was a reduction of hundreds of millions. And now when my right hon. Friend spends money upon health problems—

Dr. MURRAY: He is sacked.

The PRIME MINISTER: It may be that the nation at the moment cannot afford it, but it must not be forgotten that, by his services in saving scores and hundreds of millions during the War, he rendered a real service to economy. I know perfectly well how difficult it is for hon. Members of the House of Commons to face a question of this kind, which excites prejudice out of all proportion to its real value. They go down to a constituency, and are told, "You have voted for £100 a week for such and such a Minister. You voted for a Minister who spends money on health problems." That is a difficult thing to come down here and face, but this is the House of Commons.
It is the greatest assembly in the world. This is the greatest tribunal in the world, and I ask the House of Commons to rise above any prejudices and fears, and not to be intimidated.

Mr. DEVLIN: You are intimidated.

The PRIME MINISTER: I am not. I ask them not to be intimidated by anyone who says "You voted for this." The House of Commons must dare to do all that is right.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: It will.

The PRIME MINISTER: It does not lie well in the mouths of people who spend fortunes on their own health to hunt down men who are engaged in bettering the health of the people. My right hon. Friend has rendered great service.

Mr. BOTTOMLEY: And you give him £100 a week for doing it.

The PRIME MINISTER: He has done his best. When you come to a question whether there should be a Minister without Portfolio, let us consider it on its merits. I submit to my fellow Members in this House that at the present moment no Ministry could dispense with such an officer. I do not care what Ministry came here now, it would find it impossible to do without a Minister free from Departmental care, or to get through the work of the Session, without having the assistance of a Minister of this kind. I ask the House to support the Government in retaining the services of such a Minister to the end of the Session. We have never treated it as anything but a purely temporary appointment. We consider it necessary to the end of the Session, and I ask the House, as a question of confidence in the Government, to enable us to retain the services of this Minister until the end of the Session.

Lieut.-Colonel GUINNESS: I beg to move that sub-head AA (Salary of Minister without Portfolio) be reduced by £2,500.
The Prime Minister has shown great skill in meeting a case which he had not even heard, and now for the first time the House has been informed as to what are the duties of the Minister without Portfolio. I think it is regrettable that the Leader of the House made such a mystery of it upon a recent occasion. I agree that the Prime Minister has -made a very considerable concession to those of
us who object to this Vote, and I am sure he will have gone far by what he has said to satisfy us in this respect. We have always a full House when the Prime Minister speaks, but I would like to draw attention to the fact that in spite of what has been said in certain quarters of the Press, it is not only when they are voting their own salaries that Members of the House of Commons turn up on these financial matters, and it is very remarkable that on this occasion so much interest has been attracted.
No one who has taken action on this Vote has for a moment wished to suggest that the Prime Minister should be dictated to in the choice of his colleagues provided that he selects those colleagues in accordance with the ordinary methods of the British constitution, but the revival of the appointment of a Minister without Portfolio that had lapsed was of far-reaching importance as an outward and visible sign of the continunce of War methods of Government. I am sure the House sympathises with what the Prime Minister said about the appalling burden which he and the Cabinet as a whole nowadays have to bear. It is very difficult for us to judge of the detailed machinery of Government. We recognise that Cabinet responsibility, in the old sense, had to go to a great extent during the War, and I am sure anyone who criticises the Prime Minister will recognise that the business of the country could not be done during War time through ordinary channels, and departmental Ministers could not even read their own papers, far less find the necessary time to make themselves acquainted with matters of general importance. For that reason a small Cabinet free from the burden of administration was necessary, and although there were at that time three offices which were sinecures from the point of view of administrative work during that temporary emergency it was reasonable to have an extra Minister.
The Prime Minister tells us that it is idle to compare our present conditions with those which existed before the War. That is where a great many of us venture to disagree with the right hon. Gentleman. We feel that it is high time to go back to the old method. We feel that it is not a sufficient answer for the right hon. Gentleman to say that you must have a
watchdog going round these Departments. We feel that the old and tried method of departmental responsibility is a sound one, and the sooner we get back to it the better. We cannot afford this flood of bureaucracy, and it seems to me that we must not go on straining our own machinery to suit the continuance in office of War control officers; but we must cut down these War excrescences to fit in with the old framework of Parliamentary and Cabinet control.
5.0 P. M.
The appointment of a Minister without Portfolio, rightly or wrongly, has been looked upon as an indication that the Government did not yet adequately recognise how deeply the country feels as to the necessity of retrenchment in personnel from the Government right down to the smallest official. It has also been realised by a great many of us that it was a great disadvantage during the War that such a large number of Members were receiving salaries as Members of the Government, and therefore lost their Parliamentary independence. The Minister without Portfolio is most objectionable as a permanency, because he is free from the old constitutional check of having to go before the electors when appointed to an office, which, as everybody knows, is a most valuable safeguard against the old evil of placemen. I need not go into that. It is familiar to the Committee how Parliament struggled for years to free itself from the heavy hand of self-interest in that respect. That danger still exists in other countries. Recently in a native State they came to the Prime Minister, who happened to be a European, and said that remuneration must be provided for the wet-nurse of the ruling prince's illegitimate children. They said that the monthly grant should be made of 4 rupees together with 7 rupees for her lodging and keep. The Prime Minister said, "We can run to that—11 rupees a month." They replied, "Oh, but her husband must have it, too." He said, "All right. We can run to 22 rupees a month, but how long is this to go on for?" "Oh, sir," they replied, "you must surely realise that such recognition is never given for less than seven generations." In the East that sort of thing does not matter, because the wet-nurse I will not really function for seven
generations. The Minister without Portfolio has acted as foster-mother to certain indiscretions of the Prime Minister in his recent office, and it filled a great many of us with great disquiet to feel he apparently was about to start a farm for taking in the worst favoured progeny of the whole of the Treasury Bench.
I should have been very glad to have confined the whole of this matter to the question of principle. That certainly was my idea when I put down the reduction, but the Minister without Portfolio himself has gone out of his way in the Press to impute personal motives in connection with this matter, and the Prime Minister, in the speech to which we have just listened—a very fair speech; I do not at all complain of his line—did devote a great deal of it to the defence of the man rather than of the policy. It was said by the Minister without Portfolio in the Press that these attacks were made upon him because he was a Liberal. I believe there is absolutely no foundation for that. I did not know, and I think most of us did not know, what the position was until I looked it up, and I think such a suggestion is neither wise nor generous coming from a Minister whose particular party occupy 11 Cabinet offices as against seven held by the other wing of the Coalition, and this in spite of the fact that they only muster about a quarter of the Government majority in the Lobby. I think the Coalition most willingly acquiesced in this arrangement, but though the previous political complexion of Ministers before they joined the Coalition Government has little to do with their fitness at the present time, we are all of us deeply concerned by their actions, since they have held office. In this connection I venture to quote what Mr. Disraeli said in a Debate which led to the fall of another Coalition Government. He said:
There is no stain upon the character of public men or inconvenience to the public service in statesmen, however they may have at one time differed, if they feel themselves justified in so doing, acting together in public life. All that the country requires of public men when they do so act together is that upon all great questions they should entertain the same views, that in subjects of policy, whether foreign or domestic, they should be animated by the same convictions and the same sympathies.
I say it is a perfectly legitimate action on the part of the supporters of the
Government carefully to scrutinise Ministers' actions and records, not from any personal bias, but especially when they are signalled out, as in this case, to act as a Chief of Staff to the Prime Minister. It is idle to pretend, now that this personal question has been raised, that the activities of the Minister without Portfolio in other Government offices have not occasioned a great deal of mistrust which has been quickened by the fear that his bureaucratic methods would get greater scope in his new position. On his record in this respect it is very difficult to understand, as I think the Prime Minister suggested this afternoon, that he has been appointed to this post with a view to cutting down bureaucracy in other Departments. It may be that in this case the Minister without Portfolio is less responsible than some of us have been led to think by his record in his previous offices, and I see he has defended himself on the ground that his activities went in no way beyond the pledges of the Government. That may be. At the General Election we heard a lot about "a land fit for heroes to live in" when we were all very lucky to have a country to call our own—

Mr. DEVLIN: We have not.

Lieut.-Colonel GUINNESS: —and when people, with very little thought of the past, might have recognised we should have to devote our energy for a great many years to come to get back to the condition we enjoyed before the War. I say it is very unfortunate that the Minister without Portfolio was so slow to realise that the War had not changed the laws of economy and public finance. Justly or unjustly, his Departmental activities, especially at the Ministry of Health, have become identified in the public mind with the blight of bureaucracy and interference in the extremest form, and it is viewed with consternation that this bureaucratic blight which is associated with him may be communicated to the general activities of the Government. It is for this reason as a test question, that I felt bound to put down a reduction, but in view of what the Prime Minister has said, I beg to move a reduction for a rather different figure.

Mr. HODGE: It was generally expected that the Prime Minister in the statement he would make would blanket his opponents, and I think he has suc-
ceeded in so doing. I think we will also agree, notwithstanding anything that the Prime Minister has said, that the enemy have intimidated him into abolishing at the end of the Session the positon of Minister without Portfolio. If the arguments that the right hon. Gentleman used in the beginning of his speech for the justification of the office were sound, they are equally sound for the continuation of it. So far as we on this side are concerned, we believe that, while during the period of the war such a Minister was justified, during recent times he was absolutely unjustified. I do not think Ministers can be so seriously overworked as the Prime Minister says, when we find that one of them can go for weeks to Egypt and, amidst other duties, engage in a painting tour. That does not demonstrate great necessities as far as that particular Department, at any rate, is concerned. Be that as it may, we here have the belief that the Opposition is more against the man than the office. We are more against the office than the man. I have been a colleague of the right hon. Gentleman who at present occupies the position of Minister without Portfolio, and we have had many things to do in common, and I desire to add my testimony to that of the Prime Minister as to the great value of the services he rendered to his country during the War period, not only so far as those points which have been made by the Prime Minister as to costs, but by his sympathetic handling and his successful handling of the labour problems that arose in his Department generally. I think it is only fair that such a statement should be made so far as the Labour party is concerned. As I indicated at the beginning, the Prime Minister has absolutely run away from the position set forth in the first part of his speech, and as he is giving effect to the abolition of the office, I do not think that we need waste the time of the Committee in saying anything further as far as that particular question is concerned.

Sir MARTIN CONWAY: The feeling that has been aroused, not merely in this House, but to a considerable extent in the country, on the question of the salary of the Minister without Portfolio, has to a great extent been personal. It has not been a question of policy, it has not been a question of mere economy in the saving
of salary; it has been a much wider question than that. When this House was elected last General Election it was a time when the whole country was tired of War, and was looking forward to good times. There came back from the War millions of men who were filled with one idea, namely, that after the miseries through which they had passed they were going to have a good time. Hence arose the very general idea that there was to be a new heaven and a new earth. I do not think many candidates at the last General Election went before their constituencies and said, "We have passed through a war, we have come out from it victoriously, but we have lost all our savings in the process. We are going now to have to work harder than ever before. We are going to have to live on a lower standard of life than before. We have got to save, we have a vast debt to pay, we have got to knuckle down to it and work as we never worked in our lives before." That would have been a reasonable thing to say, but how many candidates at the last General Election said anything at alll comparable to that? The result was that the House of Commons was elected, charged, or at all events inspired, by the country to give everybody a good time, to build houses, to raise wages, to reduce hours of work, and to do everything which in a period or prosperity was no doubt what everybody desired. They envisaged no period of adversity, they envisaged no slump. They did not think that the seeming prosperity which we immediately enjoyed was but a brief flash in the pan, and the result was that the House of Commons, inspired by the general feeling of the country, and truly representing it, set to work in the first years of its existence on what was an entirely false line to take. It was under that emotion that the housing policy was initiated. It was under that emotion that the Housing Bill was brought in and passed pretty nearly unanimously through all its stages. If there were divisions they were generally divisions on the question of spending more money, which the Minister resisted. The housing policy was handed over to the then Minister of Health. It was handed over to him because he was conceived to be the man most sympathetic to the idea. Why was it not handed over to the Office of Works? Why was it not handed over to the Paymaster-General, who was so
closely associated with housing? It was handed over to the Minister of Health because he was known to be cordially in sympathy with the general idea. It was handed over to him because he was regarded as best embodying the opinion of the House of Commons and the country on this matter at that moment. Therefore, if there has been over expenditure or extravagance on housing the responsibility rests not on the Minister, but on the House of Commons as a whole, and on all parties in it on every side. The whole of the House is responsible for the policy with which the present Minister without Portfolio is associated, and I think, therefore, it is singularly unfair when we find ourselves in a set of circumstances very different from that which we anticipated being in, when we find ourselves driven, on account of economy, to give up all the fine things to which we had been looking forward, when we find that these are the days of hard work and small pay for everyone, professional men as well as working classes, it is singularly unfair to suddenly turn round and rend the Minister with whom we entrusted the policy which we had intended to carry out; it is one of the meanest things ever done.

Dr. MURRAY: And who except the Prime Minister did it?

Sir M. CONWAY: We were all responsible alike. When the time came that the policy had to be dropped, not because it was bad, but because we could not afford it, it was possible that a change of Ministers might have marked that change. I wish to dissociate myself from the personal aspect of the question. We have no right to charge the right hon. Gentleman with having wasted public funds when he has merely carried out the policy which he was put into office to carry out, and the responsibility for which rests not on him, but on the whole House of Commons.

Mr. BOTTOMLEY: This has been a very bad afternoon for the Government. It is one of the first fruits of the harvest. The Government has itself cut its own Vote into two. It has promised in effect to abolish the Office. The Prime Minister has gone to the extent of saying that after the end of this Session it will not be continued and there will, of course, be no funds available for carrying it on. Amid the almost unanimous derisive
laughter of the Committee the right hon. Gentleman has climbed down on the very question of principle on which the Government staked its existence. As far as I am personally concerned, I feel in a position of some embarrassment, because I have to choose between the charm of a great personality and the pressure of a great principle. No one appreciates more than I do the splendid work which the Minister without Portfolio did in other Departments. But all that is beyond the mark, and the Prime Minister was never more wrong in his life than when he said that, once again, the country is discussing a great principle on a small issue. He spoke of the fact that £100 per week would be saved to the electors by the abolition of the office. It is difficult to come down and face that sort of thing. It is an almost complete misconception of the position. At the moment perhaps I happen to be more in touch with the electorate than the Prime Minister. What the country is concerned about is the fact—and I strongly commend this to the Leader of the House—that after making allowance for the War expenses to which the Prime Minister has referred, after making allowance for the increased cost of living, after allowing in fact for everything, we are spending twice as much on the Government of this country as we were before the War. The country takes this particular incident as symptomatic only of the wider question.
The plea of the Government that Ministers are so overworked that they must have the services of a Minister without Portfolio is a very old plea indeed. I was looking at the Official Report to-day and I find that 10 years ago in this House I raised a question as to the duties and emolument of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and the Prime Minister of that day after explaining the technical duties of the Chancellor went on to say:
In practice it has been found by recent Governments an advantage to possess a Minister whose departmental work is sufficiently light to enable him to attend more closely to other Parliamentary and Ministerial duties. The present pressure on Cabinet Ministers "—
That was in 1911, remember, when they did not know a war was coming on—
is such as to render it inexpedient to make the change suggested by the hon. Member."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 1st November, 1911; col. 870, Vol. 30.]
Ten years ago the pressure on Ministers was such that they required the assistance of the Chancellor of the Duchy. Cannot they have it now? Are that Minister's duties heavier than they were? What about some other sinecure posts? I do not refer to the Lord Privy Seal. We know that he has onerous duties, but there is the Lord President of the Council and the Chancellor of the Duchy, and there are various other heads of Departments who might be available. Does it need both the Minister of Mines and the Minister of Labour to deal with industrial unrest? We are told that the Minister without Portfolio acts as Chairman of Cabinet Committees. If he were not there, surely the Committee could elect some other member to act as Chairman? It is not essential that a particular Minister should be Chairman of all Cabinet Committees. May I put it in this way? Let us be free from cant. Let us face the facts. When the present Secretary for War ceased to be a Minister without Portfolio we had no Minister without Portfolio for a considerable time, and yet somehow or other the Government of the country went on. It was only when, as I think wrongly, the tide of prejudice against the present Minister without Portfolio rose—and he was altogether undeserving of it—it was then and then only that the Prime Minister said to him, "There is such a feeling against the Ministry of Health just now, circumstances have been against you, that I am afraid you had better give up the job. We will call you the Minister without Portfolio and continue your services just the same." If the Prime Minister had said plainly to-day what he has led us to infer the House would have been full of sympathy for the Minister without Portfolio.
I believe that the Minister without Portfolio in other Departments has rendered magnificent service to the State. As Minister of Munitions—I am not sure that he claims to be the inventor of that particular system of costings which saved the country so many hundreds of millions—he certainly did do splendid work. When he came to the Ministry of Health circumstances were against him, and the Government could not withstand public opinion. If the Prime Minister infers that the Government wish to recognise his services by continuing him as Minister
without Portfolio, why is this not told plainly to the House? The right hon. Gentleman has climbed down. He did not do himself full justice. He said that the appointment was only for a time. This is the first we have heard of that. When this Vote was put down, it was not explained that it was to be only for a time. Who was responsible for the Vote? It was the bye-elections which gave the Government a warning. I respectfully suggest to the House that the country is tired of the present high expenditure, an expenditure double what it was in normal times. The right hon. Gentleman's statement to-day is an utterly weak exhibition. He tells us that the Minister without Portfolio is to continue in office until the end of the Session. He says, "We will consent to the Vote being cut down by one-half, and in future no more will be heard of this particular office." This is a great victory for public economy. I am not a fatuous Anti-Waster. The policy of the Anti-Waster, in my opinion, is purely negative unless there is something constructive behind it, and although I have every admiration for the leader of the Anti-Waste party in this House, who I hoped was going to take a prominent part in this Debate, I do feel that every Member of the House has at heart the desire to cut down expenditure as much as possible. It is a fact that the public and the country and the House of Commons, the greatest assembly in the world as we were told this afternoon, have taught the Government a lesson. Let them take it to heart, and then perhaps they will not lose quite so many bye-elections.

Lord EUSTACE PERCY: I put down a Motion on the Paper to leave out Item AA (Salary of the Minister without Portfolio), for a reason which has been fully justified by the Prime Minister's speech this afternoon. I did it because I wanted to show in any little way I could that the opposition to the Ministry without Portfolio does not proceed from any hostility towards those projects of social reform with which the right hon. Gentleman who now holds that office was so closely associated as Minister of Health. The right hon. Gentleman will agree with me that I could not possibly be a party to any attack upon his housing policy or the housing policy of the Government and of the House of Commons without going back on everything I said on scores of
platforms within a few miles of this place last year. For that reason I wish to say that this action has nothing to do with the question to which the Prime Minister has referred, the question of the housing and health policies of the Government. Whatever some of us may think as to the mistakes of administration which have been made in that policy, whatever different views we may hold as to the form in which that policy will have to be continued by any party in the future which hopes for the support of the country, whatever differences of opinion we may have as to all that, I have no patience with those who two years ago were attacking the right hon. Gentleman because he did not build houses quickly enough and who to-day are attacking him for extravagance because, having to build houses quickly, he built them on the top of the market.
Having said that, I hope to get away altogether from the personal question and the question of the past record of the Minister without Portfolio. I think that the opposition in the country to this proposal was a little more than merely symptomatic. This question of a Ministry without Portfolio does go very near to the root of certain serious doubts that some of us hold as to the whole direction in which Cabinet government is tending to go at the present moment. The Prime Minister mentioned, quite rightly, the tremendous burden which is imposed on Ministers at the present day. But is that burden less or more by reason of the fact that there is a Cabinet Committee, presided over by a Minister without Portfolio, considering questions closely touching the administrative duties of particular Ministers, and considering them in a way which may override the responsibility and the wish of those particular Ministers. Does that add to or lessen their burden? Perhaps, if it is not indiscreet to do so, I might give one recollection of the War period. It was my duty, at a certain period of the War, to press a certain policy on the United States Government, on the official and daily instructions of the Minister of Blockade. When those negotiations had been proceeding for a certain time, a memorandum, prepared, I believe, by a Cabinet Committee—I have never seen it myself, and I have met few who have—was sent to the President of the United States through channels other than the Minister responsible for the con-
duct of the blockade; and for weeks the official policy of His Majesty's Government in that matter was held up, delayed, and nullified by an impression, gathered by the head of an Allied State from a printed document, that the policy of the inner circle of the Cabinet was very different from any official notification that he might receive from the Foreign Office.
That kind of thing, lam convinced, runs through the whole of our Government still, and the Ministry without Portfolio is one of the chief symptoms of a tendency to run policy independently of responsible administrative heads. At this time, especially, the country feels that that is intensely dangerous, because the whole essence of the economy movement, as I see it, is that, in order to make possible sound legislation for social reform, or anything else, in the future, our first business at the present moment is the consolidation and reconstruction of the whole administrative machinery of the country. The establishment of Ministries without Portfolio, indicates that, after all, instead of this attention to administrative consolidation and reform, the Government is giving its attention to vague further schemes of legislation, which at the present moment they have not the administrative machinery to carry out. That is the only thing that I would say as to the housing policy; the Government had not sufficient machinery to carry it out. There are at the present moment before this country two great major questions of administrative reform without which no economy can be effected, namely, the whole question of local taxation and local government, and the whole question of the consolidation of what is commonly known as public assistance in its various forms.
I might not quarrel very much with the Ministry without Portfolio if I had any hope that it could tackle those vast subjects. The Prime Minister has mentioned one of them, namely, local taxation. Is it conceivable that a Minister without Portfolio, presiding over no matter how many Cabinet Committees, can deal with that question as well as or better than the Minister of Health, responsible as he is for the local government of this country? The Minister of Health has found at every turn, in administering the health policy, the urgent necessity of a thorough, fundamental reform of local
taxation and local government in its relation to the central Government. What we have to face is not lack of material, or lack of investigation into the matter of local taxation. The study of every man who takes the slightest interest in such questions is littered, like leaves in Vallom-brosa, with Blue-books on local taxation and reports of Departmental Committees. I am afraid the Ministry without Portfolio will only add to the litter on the floor, and sometimes in the waste-paper basket, and will not give rise to definite conclusions. Definite conclusions, definite proposals for reform, can only come from the responsible Minister—from the Minister of Health as regards local government, and from the Minister of Labour, mainly, as regards the question of public assistance. I shall rest satisfied with the very considerable way that the Prime Minister has gone to meet us this afternoon, but I would urge upon the Government that the greatest necessity at the present time for the satisfaction of the country is to convince it that the administrative system, both central and local, is being consolidated, reformed, reconstructed, on economic lines, and not to encourage the feeling, which still exists, that vague schemes are still in the making which the Government will be as powerless to carry out as it has been powerless to carry out its agricultural policy and the other policies which it has evolved during the last few months.

Viscountess ASTOR: I rise in support of the Prime Minister in his defence of the Minister without Portfolio. I think the House sometimes forgets that the policy which the Minister without Portfolio, when he was at the Ministry of Health, was trying to carry out, was the policy of the Government, and the policy which this House had approved. He would have been unworthy of his position if he had not tried to carry through those reforms, and the Government would have been very unworthy if they had not stood by the Minister whom they had appointed and approved. I am afraid that the Ministry of Health was a little too progressive for some people. I do not agree with the hon. Member for Hastings (Lord E. Percy) when he says that the attack was not made because, the Minister was a Liberal, but for the reasons which he mentioned. I think, myself, that the Minister of Health was
too progressive, and is too progressive for a great many Members of the House of Commons. I am not one who wants to waste money; I want to save it. But there are things which are more valuable than money in the country, and one of those is the health of the country. I have noticed that the cries about anti-waste do not touch the things that are really wasteful. They never mention how much we are spending on drink. I know that the House of Commons does not like to hear about it, but they have to face it. Why do they not cry out a little about our drink bill? No nation can afford to spend what we are spending on drink. It does not add either to the efficiency of to the health of a nation. I should have more faith in the anti-wasters if they tackled the drink question and left the Ministry of Health alone. I hope hon. Members will bear in mind that some day they will have to face a different constituency. There will be the women who will say, "Yes, you tried to do away with the Ministry of Health; you tried to do away with the infant welfare organisation." Those are things about which the Minister without Portfolio cared deeply, and for which he worked hard.
You cannot have your pie and eat it too. In the right hon. Gentleman you had a Minister who cared deeply about those things, and yet you allow him to be attacked. That is what the House is doing constantly. You go to your constituencies and talk one way, and you come back to the House of Commons and talk another way. You tell your women electors that you are deeply interested in infant welfare and the things that concern women, but you cry out about the Ministry of Health and its programme. It may be a little bureaucratic, but you have to have organisation before you can get things done, and, of course, you have to have people to do them. I would remind those hon. Gentlemen that they will have to face the women electors, and I would say to them, Do not be frightened of the anti-waste papers. They are just so much waste of time unless they talk about real economy, and you cannot economise in the life of the nation. There are, as I have pointed out, things in which we cannot economise. I feel deeply grateful to the Minister without Portfolio for the great work that he has done as far as the health of the nation is concerned, in his infant wel-
fare centres, and every progressive reform which he had at heart long before he was Minister of Health. I do not think the House of Commons realises what he did in regard to milk. That is a subject which does not seem to interest a great many hon. Members, but it is a very vital subject. Milk is more necessary to the nation even than beer. I appeal to the Government not to give in to the cry throughout the country when attacks are made upon their progressive Members. Do not do it. You will have the whole country behind you if you go forward with a progressive programme which is building up the health of the nation. Do not listen to the people who would economise in child life. Listen to us, who would economise in waste, such as your enormous drink bill, which is not adding to your efficiency or to the moral or spiritual standard of this country. That is a thing that we all of us need, that the country needs.

Sir F. BANBURY: And common sense, too.

Viscountess ASTOR: Yes, common sense. The taunt from the right hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London is a tremendous temptation, but I am told not to give in to it. If we followed his policy we should find ourselves in stage coaches and crinolines. I hope very much that the House of Commons will, as the Prime Minister said, be generous enough to support the former Minister of Health—some day they will be proud of the work he did— instead of listening to the people who want to economise in all that is worthy and to spend on all that is unworthy.

Major C. LOWTHER: I doubt whether I should be in Order if I followed the hon. Member for Plymouth (Viscountess Astor) into the questions of beer, crinolines, stage coaches, maternity, and other matters which are of great interest, but are of no particular relevance to the subject that we are now discussing. We feel that we have gained such a signal victory—for the Prime Minister, when he was waxing most wroth and denouncing us even for the comparatively light offence of smiling, was, in fact, making a confession of error—we feel, some of us, that it would be, perhaps, ungenerous to follow him and belabour him too far in his defeat.

Mr. A. HOPKINSON: Of whom is the hon. arid gallant Gentleman speaking?

Major LOWTHER: Those of us who insisted on the reduction of the salary of the Minister without Portfolio. I listened with considerable interest and satisfaction to one statement of the Prime Minister, which, as I understood it, was that the Minister—and he was referring to the Minister without Portfolio—knows that he has to face the House of Commons. That is very grateful news indeed. I was bold enough one day last week to address to the Minister without Portfolio two questions, perfectly in order, perfectly harmless, searching merely for certain information. He was apparently considered by the Leader of the House too tender a plant to be brought into the light of day, and the Leader of the House rose in his place and said no information would be given on the subject, and I must follow the Prime Minister's counsel to "wait and see" or "watch and pray." I most strongly protest against the attitude of the Government in that matter. It seems to me little short of a scandal that a Minister who is in receipt of a salary should not be allowed to answer questions properly addressed to him and at the same time should be allowed to give to the Press an interview about his office, and state his views as to the reasons for the opposition against him. It will be a little difficult for the Minister without Portfolio to reconcile these words of his which were reported when he said, "I am not to be driven out of office." He said that on 15th June. It is now 23rd June, and he has virtually received his dismissal from the Prime Minister. It is not for me to enter into the family differences of the Prime Minister and his Cabinet, but I dare say there will be exchanged some heart to heart conversations on this point. We have every right to protest against a Minister giving information to the Press and refusing it to this House. We are entitled to have certain information, and information as to the duties of the Minister without Portfolio would be of considerable assistance to the House. They would then know the important duties which he was performing and the reasons for his holding his office, and they would be able to form, before they heard the Prime Minister's pronouncement, some sort of judg-
ment as to whether they would be prepared to support the Minister without Portfolio or not.
I could raise the point, but I do not intend to at any length, that the money has already been spent for the Minister without Portfolio without Parliamentary sanction. I hope the Government, when they bear in mind that there has been considerable protest against what they choose to call this apparently small item, will bear in mind also that there is a strong feeling in the House against the practice of spending public money without obtaining Parliamentary sanction. This Supplementary Estimate would not now be before the House unless considerable pressure had been brought upon the Government to have the discussion at an early date. It is rather significant that the pressure of public business was so great when the right hon. Gentleman was appointed, continued to be so great, and the emergency was so urgent until a memorial was signed by some 180 or so of the Prime Minister's supporters calling for urgent economy. Then apparently the emergency ceased to exist, and the Prime Minister found that he could, after all, in a comparatively short time dispense with the services of the Minister without Portfolio. I should like to make it perfectly clear that the attack which I make is not in any way directed against the personality of the right hon. Gentleman himself. I admire and esteem him. It is under two heads, in the first place, that money should be spent without previous Parliamentary sanction having been obtained, and in the second place, that a Minister should not be allowed to give to the House information which it is entitled to have.

Mr. DEVLIN: The hon. and gallant Gentleman (Major Lowther) has claimed the proceedings of to-day up to now as a triumph for him, and his right to claim that triumph has been contested by one of the faithful followers of the Government on the other side.

Mr. HOPKINSON: I am the most unfaithful follower the Government has.

Mr. DEVLIN: It is curious the places in which we discover wisdom. I understand the hon. Member was one of the faithful followers of the Government. I am glad to know that, like me, he is not.
I think we had better form a coalition. But, whoever else may boast about the triumph, the proceedings of to-day are, in my judgment, a humiliation of the House of Commons. I have rarely listened to a more dishonest Debate. I have rarely witnessed more dishonest proceedings than the proceedings which have taken place here to-day. In the first place, this is the culmination of a long and well-organised agitation against the Minister without Portfolio. If there is one thing I will never do, it is to praise a Member of the present Government. If there was an archangel in this Government, I could not praise him, so manifold are the crimes of the Government against the country I represent. But, detaching myself from my Irish character and speaking purely as an impartial observer of public events in this country, I think the way the right hon. Gentleman has been pursued has been unworthy of this country. He has been made a scapegoat, he has been assailed from every quarter of those who are supposed to be the supporters of the Government, he has been taken to the sacrificial altar by the Prime Minister himself, and he has been the offering given to all the forces which have been afraid to attack what are regarded as the bigger men. He said himself, in a recent declaration, that he was being hounded out of the Government because he was a Liberal. I wonder if he has ever thought this Government was no place for a Liberal. Whatever is liberal in this Government is merely a camouflage, a veneer, to cover its Toryism, and even the Prime Minister himself would not be at the head of that Government to-day if it were not for his magnetic powers and his Welsh oratorical equipment to enable him to defend Tory policies—for we know of no other policies —fashioned and carried out by this Government.
The right hon. Gentleman has been associated with the House of Commons, therefore he must be a victim. He has been associated with Health, therefore he must be a victim. What have all the economists centred their attention upon? What form has this protest against the expenditure of public money taken? It has been directed against the few good causes with which this Government may be credited, the housing of the people, the health of the people, and the education of the people. For some reason those were
the burdens which were placed upon the right hon. Gentleman's shoulders, and no British Minister could take upon himself a higher or a nobler responsibility than to improve housing conditions, to foster the health of the people who are the citizens of this nation, or to educate the future men and women of England that they might all the more efficiently discharge their civic responsibilities in the future. And this is the only Minister against whom all this organised attack has been made. I should imagine the Prime Minister would have said, "This man stands for good causes, and I will defend him, I will stand by him and uphold him." But instead of that he pursues a course that in my judgment is unworthy of the Prime Minister. I listened to his speech. It was a magnificent eulogy of the qualities and the services of the right hon. Gentleman. I only know the motive which has inspired and the purposes with which the right hon. Gentleman has been associated, and they were infinitely laudable. I know nothing about the value of his services. The Prime Minister does, and if the Minister without Portfolio possesses only one-twentieth of the qualities which were so splendidly recited by the Prime Minister a more disgraceful betrayal I have never heard.
Here, according to the Prime Minister himself, is an invaluable public servant, a man who at the Ministry of Munitions saved the nation hundreds of millions of pounds. The Prime Minister even grew livid with rage in the expression of his indignation against someone on those Benches who dared to question the splendid service which the right hon. Gentleman rendered to the cause of public health. And yet, instead of standing by him as he ought to have stood by him, and saying, "Now that I have proved to the House of Commons what a valuable colleague the Minister without Portfolio is, now that I have impressed upon you the pure cash value of the right hon. Gentleman to the Empire, now that I have explained to you that there never was a man who rendered a bigger service to the Empire, I am not going to be shouted down by clamour either in the newspapers or on the platform, but I am going to defend him to the death," which would have been a courageous and a highly honourable policy, he gives the right hon. Gentleman three months' notice. He not only dismisses him, but humiliates him
before the House of Commons, and he does all this with the full knowledge that if he had rammed the right hon. Gentleman down the throats of his humble followers behind him they would have accepted it and regarded it as the most digestible of political morsels. There was a three-lined whip issued to members of the Coalition party to come down and vote, not for the reduction of the salary, but for the retention of the right hon. Gentleman, and I never saw this House so crowded as it was to-day. You rushed down almost breaking your necks to stand by the right hon. Gentleman, and when you are prepared, after all the agitation you have carried on in the country, to stand by the right hon. Gentleman, when the moment comes the Prime Minister refuses to stand by his own colleague, and deserts him and throws him to the wolves.
6.0 P.M.
I am not in the least concerned with this question, much as I feel that the Minister without Portfolio has been badly treated. It is rather strange to find a whole day of the House of Commons occupied in discussing the salary of a painstaking, a highly public-spirited, a humane, and an honest statesman, while out of the reservoirs of Imperial wealth you are pouring money every day into the most unproductive and most dangerous of causes, and doing it without protest. We hear these violent protests raised in the Press and in the country about the salary of the right hon. Gentleman; why do we not hear them about the appalling expenditure on armaments? I have never heard a Tory economist yet get up and denounce increasing armaments. Sacrifice the health of the people, sacrifice their education, let the heroes who have returned from the War do without houses, but build up military power in every part of the world. We would believe in the realities of these protests against extravagance, and we would have some faith in these apostles of economy if, instead of play acting for the benefit of their constituents, play acting on questions such as a salary of £5,000 a year, they would deal with the crushing burdens of the millions, that are growing more and more, that are spent on armaments and upon measures not for the preservation of life but for the ruin of human life and the destruction of human happiness. Not a word about armaments, not a word
about the profligate expenditure of public money in Ireland. I asked for a return of the expenditure upon the army in Ireland, and I was shocked by the appalling character of the figures; £18,000,000 a year.

Mr. R. McNEILL: That is not on this Vote.

Mr. DEVLIN: Not on this Vote. I am drawing a comparison. You are afraid of these comparisons. I have no doubt that my hon. Friend will go down to Kent and talk about economy, and how he came to the House of Commons and looked at Lloyd George, and how the right hon. Gentleman shivered on that Bench, and how, instead of keeping the Minister without Portfolio, he dismissed him with three months' notice. I can imagine the hon. Member saying, "I raised the standard of revolt against this public expenditure," but not a word about the £18,000,000 a year which is being spent in keeping up an army in Ireland to crush the aspirations of the people. Not a word about the expenditure on a military machine to destroy peaceful Irish villages. Not a word about the organised military power to make life unbearable in Irish cities, towns, and villages. You cannot go through Dublin or Cork or any Irish community without seeing armoured cars, with soldiers bearing rifles.

Mr. ERSKINE: Is it in order for the hon. Member to start an Irish Debate?

Mr. DEVLIN: Every Debate is an Irish Debate in these days.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN (Sir E. Cornwall): It is not in order to have an Irish Debate on this Vote, but I did not understand the hon. Member to be out of order. He is simply using the Irish position as an illustration. Of course, he must not carry the illustration so far as to start an Irish Debate.

Mr. DEVLIN: I will only carry it to the extent of exciting the hon. Member opposite. It is a perfect luxury to see him moving about £5,000 a year, but not moving about £18,000,000 spent in Ireland. The whole thing is a fraud. This Debate is a false Debate from beginning to end. One of the justifications which the Prime Minister gave for the continuance of the position of a Minister
without Portfolio was the enormous burdens which Ministers had to bear in the very varied functions they had to discharge in the Departments over which they rule. He told us that in the last six months there had been 298 meetings either of the Cabinet or meetings of Cabinet Committees or meetings for administrative purposes, and so forth. Why did he not tell us what amount of wisdom oozed from all these meetings? As a result of these 298 meetings the millennium ought to have been reached. What have we got for these 298 meetings? I advise the right hon. Gentleman to stop holding these meetings. All we have got from the meetings is the coal strike—[HON. MEMBERS: "Lock-out!"]—The coal lockout. I believe there would have been a strike and not a lock-out if there had been five more meetings. There have been 298 meetings, and the Peace Conference is still sitting; 298 meetings and we are still quarrelling about Mesopotamia; 298 meetings and Ireland is 50 times worse than she ever was in her history. For what do these people meet? Is there any wisdom in their councils? We will send the Chief Secretary for Ireland, the second Cromwell, and tell them to disappear.
If the function of the Minister without Portfolio is to go round to all these different administrative bodies and Cabinet Committees, and if he was so statesmanlike in his wisdom, why is he to disappear? If this functionary discharged with such efficiency and such wonderful skill the duties devolving on him, why is he to be dismissed with three months' notice? I know the reason, but the right hon. Gentleman does not know it, and it is the one thing that proves that they are not going to get rid of all the Liberals in the Cabinet. They are going to put the Chief Secretary into the job. He is a Liberal. Can anybody show me a Tory? Are there any Tories anywhere about? I should like to see them. I understand that one of the Ministers said that this was a Liberal Government. The right hon. Gentleman is to leave the Ministry without Portfolio, but as it is a position which renders such invaluable service to the State we must fill it again. Health, education, housing are dangerous to the State, so away with Addison and bring in Hamar Greenwood! He will not talk about health. There has been no health in Ireland since he came there.
He will not introduce any Education Bills. The thing he teaches us is taught by the rifle and the sword. He does not need to bother about housing. He can house us all in gaol. He will be able to bring a fine, refined mind, and a splendid picturesque figure to the discharge of the functions of this new office of superintending all the other offices.
The whole thing is a sham and a humbug. There was no need for the Prime Minister to come down here and get excited. His excitement and anger with his critics and the critics of the Minister without Portfolio would have been justified if he had stood by the right hon. Gentleman, but he did not. The Tories would have jumped at the crack of the Lloyd George whip, but instead of that we have Lloyd George hopping at the crack of the Tory whip.

Lieut.-Colonel ARCHER-SHEE: On a point of Order—

Mr. DEVLIN: There you are again!

Lieut.-Colonel ARCHER-SHEE: Is the hon. Member in Order in referring to hon. and right hon. Members of this House by their names?

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member is not entitled to refer to hon. and right hon. Members by their names. He has been long enough a Member of this House to know that he should refer to hon. Members by their constituencies.

Mr. DEVLIN: I was only quoting. However, I will not quote again. I will never call them by their names again. The hon. and gallant Member (Lieut.-Colonel Archer-Shee) is also getting excited. The only difference between him and the others is that he is always excited, and he is never so much excited as when there is no reason for being excited. I merely rose for the purpose of adding some seriousness to this Debate. Up to now it has been a joke, a perfect Coalition joke. Three months' screeching in the Press, three months' denunciation of the right hon. Gentleman, three months of volumes written and columns spoken about the existence of this nefarious office, and then hon. Gentlemen come down here and they accept an Amendment of the Prime Minister which gets him out of his difficulty and gets them out of their difficulty, and that is the solution of the whole problem. I wonder
how long the English people are to be taken in by all this humbug. There were some people in this country who actually thought that hon. Members were going to vote against the Government this evening. They had as much intention of voting against the Government as I have of voting for the Government. I once asked a friend whether he thought there would be a General Election soon, and he said: "Not at all. Do you think that about 400 Members of Parliament who have paid £2,000 each to get into the House are going to vote themselves out of the House."
You are afraid to go to the country, every one of you, because you know that not upon this mere question of the salary of a Minister, but upon your whole policy and upon every branch of that policy in which your failure has been collosal, you will be tested. Every by-election that has taken place you have only to watch the triumphant march of my hon. Friend the Member for South Hackney (Mr. Bottomley). He goes down with an Anti-Waste party of four and comes back with an Anti-Waste party of five. If things go on as they are going he will be Prime Minister of England, and I think he will make a better Prime Minister than the present Prime Minister. Any change would be better than the present condition of things. There is not a single part of this Empire safe and there is not a single Department of this Empire solvent, and therefore the country finding no other man to lead it along the lines of public rectitude and imperial strength is following the hon. Member. And whom does he bring into the House? I believe that he will be Leader of the House. I will tell you why. This is a militarist House. He has got an Admiral as one of his successful candidates, and he has got a general as another.

Mr. BOTTOMLEY: And a colonel and a major.

Mr. DEVLIN: And the most distinguished man they have is a private, my hon. and gallant Friend opposite (Captain Gee) who earned the Victoria Cross.

Captain GEE: I never was one of the Anti-Waste party of the hon. Member for South Hackney.

Mr. DEVLIN: All I know is that some of the most eloquent speeches delivered in
favour of the candidature of my hon. and gallant Friend were delivered by the hon. Member.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I must ask the hon. Member to keep to the point.

Mr. DEVLIN: I am so near the point that I am going to say my last word. This Government, which has humiliated England, has nearly ruined Ireland, and has destroyed itself in the country, has left us with a new party, and that party is the party of the hon. Gentleman the Member for South Hackney.

Mr. HOPKINSON: The hon. Member (Mr. Devlin) has, I am afraid, failed in his attempt to introduce an atmosphere of seriousness into this Debate, but I do not think that is the fault of my Hon. Friend himself. If we may be allowed, I would like to come back to the subject, the question as to whether, owing to certain utterances in the Press, steps have been taken by the Prime Minister which were unjustifiable. In what I am going to say I do hope that the right hon. Gentleman (Dr. Addison) will not think that there is any real personal feeling. I felt it my duty ever since the initiation of the policy which has proved so disastrous both to the hon. Gentleman himself and to the country at large, having a certain knowledge of the subject, to oppose that policy to the very best of my ability, and I think I did so with a certain amount of success. I am afraid that the right hon. Gentleman has been inclined to think that in doing so I have been taking a personal view of the matter. I wish to declaim that absolutely. If he remembers, from the very start of this controversy I have stuck strictly to the question of the policy concerned. I have shown, I hope pretty early, what the inevitable result of that policy must be. Again and again on the Floor of this House and upstairs in Committee I have rubbed in that one point that it must end in disaster, and therefore I do hope that he will not regard any remarks of mine as personal.
I understand that when in the jungle a kill has been effected, it is customary for numberless creeping things of various sorts to come and take part in the dividing of the body, and I protest strongly against so much of what has been said this evening and what will be
said after I have sat down, and when we have so much of this type of creeping thing that preys on what somebody else has killed, it is most objectionable for Members of this House to pursue that policy here. We have the claim of certain organs of the Press that they have succeeded by gross personal attack on the right hon. Gentleman in driving him from office. The thing is as cruel as it is false. It is false to say that any organ of the Press or any stuntmonger in this House or outside has created this state of affairs. The right hon. Gentleman has not been beaten by any paper or any person or any group of persons. He has been beaten, just as these unfortunate coalminers have been beaten recently, by the hard pressure of economic facts. [HON. MEMBERS: "They are not beaten yet!"] The miners of this country are absolutely beaten to the ground, but they have this satisfaction, if it is a satisfaction, of knowing that the coalowners were beaten to the ground months ago by those same economic facts.

The CHAIRMAN: These remarks in parenthesis are not relevant to the point.

Mr. HOPKINSON: The extreme rapidity with which I was speaking may have shown that I was endeavouring to keep within the parenthesis. The right hon. Gentleman need not feel, any more than the mineowners, that he is beaten by anything else but the hard pressure of facts. To the best of my ability, for the last two years, I have endeavoured, as far as I can, to show the right hon. Gentleman that those facts would eventually beat the policy to which he was committed. In view of what the Prime Minister has said this afternoon, I think that none of us are justified in introducing the taint of bitterness into this Debate. The Prime Minister has gone an enormously long way to meet those of us who, not from any sense of distaste towards the right hon. Gentleman himself, but from our conception of the present economic situation in this country, brought a certain amount of pressure to bear through the proper channels on the Prime Minister in this matter. My hon. Friend the Member for the Falls Division (Mr. Devlin) has tried to draw a picture of the Prime Minister being threatened by Members on this side of the House to compel him against his own will to turn down a trusted colleague
of his own. I think we must at any rate give the Prime Minister on this occasion the credit for having seen at length the futile results of the policy adopted 2½ years ago.
I hope that this Committee will not think that I am taking too much on myself in this matter. What nerves me to speak on this is this: I am unlike the hon. Member for the United Universities, who told us that we all agreed to his policy at the General Election. I did not. I simply promised my constituents, and I have promised them ever since, one of the worst times economically that the country has ever seen. If during this controversy I have imported any bitterness I ask the right hon. Gentleman to forgive me, and to understand that it has been owing to the fact that I did really see—I claim no virtue in this—the results of his policy and the appalling privations which have been undoubtedly to a very large extent produced by his policy, so that I felt it my duty to keep up the fight for those two years. Now, when all is said and done, let him remember that I have not beaten him, and those who were with me have not done so, but that he has been beaten by certain economic laws with which we cannot tamper. In this case it is the policy pursued that has caused all the trouble. He has failed perhaps, and I have succeeded, just because of those laws which made that policy impossible.

Mr. ASQUITH: In listening to this Debate it is impossible for me not to feel that anyone who takes part in it is playing a role in a political comedy. A more unreal performance I have never witnessed in my whole experience in the House of Commons. In two or three sentences I shall try to make good that which is to me the really serious lesson to be drawn from our proceedings here. First I subscribe entirely to the tribute which has been paid by the Prime Minister and by independent Members in almost every quarter of the House to the ability and public services of the right hon. Gentleman whose salary we are discussing. I believe that I was the first person to select him for a place in the Government and I am not repentant for that, though I have had to disagree with some of the aspects of his policy from time to time. But I could not help thinking, and I am sure that the Committee must have thought, while the Prime Minister was
indulging in what I think was a well-merited and not exaggerated eulogy of the public services of the right hon. Gentleman, what a mysterious thing it was that a man so well equipped by native talent and acquired experience for departmental work should be withdrawn altogether from the exercise of administrative duties and put in a position which is nebulous and undefined with a kind of roving commission, supervising the work of his colleagues, but not responsible for any one of the Departments of the State.
The Prime Minister spoke of the office of Minister without Portfolio and said that it was a useful corrective to the bureaucratic tendency of the time. A more extraordinary misconception and mis-description cannot be imagined. It is true that if you left the civil servants to themeelves—there is no abler or more disinterested body of men to be found in this or any other country—the administrative machinery of this country might degenerate into bureaucracy. You correct that by having at the head of each Department a Parliamentarian, a Member of this House, who is responsible to the House for what his Department does in Whitehall, Downing Street, or elsewhere. The liaison officer, the real nexus, the real guarantee for Parliamentary control, is not this shadowy, flitting figure of a Minister without Portfolio. It is the head of the Department concerned. He is responsible. It is to him that our inquiries should be addressed and are addressed. It is his salary, and his salary alone, that ought to be attacked when any departmental negligence or misfeasance is made out.
I confess, speaking for myself, that I see no necessity whatever for the continuance of this office. I was the first Prime Minister in modern times, during the last half-century or more, to have in his Cabinet a Minister without Portfolio. That was in the War, when the first Coalition was formed and a very eminent statesman filled that post without any remuneration at all. I refer to Lord Lansdowne. It was an exceptional appointment, justified and justifiable only by the special incidence of an abnormal and unexampled situation. That is all over now. I am totally unable to realise that Ministers of the Crown, assisted as they are in these
days by a far larger staff of public servants, a staff which has been added to and even multiplied beyond all precedents—I am totally unable to realise that those Ministers cannot do what their predecessors did in the most critical emergencies of our history and carry on without the assistance of this intruder from a constitutional point of view, the Minister without Portfolio.
We have been told by the Prime Minister this afternoon that the Ministry is to be abolished whenever this Session ends, at the outside, I suppose, in the course of the next two or three months. It is a very curious psychological coincidence that this office having been left vacant, and the present incumbent having been appointed to it, and the salary having been put down for the whole year, that it was found possible by the Prime Minister to dispense with this apparently indispensable wheel of the coach at the end of the present Session? What change of circumstance is there in the volume and complexity and difficulties of administration which has occurred since this Estimate was presented not Very long ago? The explanation is very simple. Some 180 gentlemen, Members of this House, faithful supporters of the Government, have, in the interval, signed a round robin, and have shown very inconvenient symptoms of a mutinous temper. I know of no other reason and no new circumstance.

Mr. BOTTOMLEY: The Hertford Election.

Mr. ASQUITH: I am coming to that. Things have happened, we know. Here I must say a friendly word to the 180 gentlemen who signed the manifesto. What has made them so suddenly and so keenly sensitive to this comparatively small expenditure? As the hon. Member for the Falls Division (Mr. Devlin) in his most brilliant and entertaining speech pointed out, these 180 gentlemen, or the great bulk of them, have sat by silent, or sometimes actively approving, when millions and tens of millions and hundreds of millions have been voted at the dictation of the Government. Protests from this side of the House have for the most part been addressed to empty Benches, or nearly empty Benches. It is only after one or two by-elections, formidable, I agree, and menacing to
them, that their dormant consciences were suddenly aroused to life, and the Government were threatened. There was the momentous manifesto addressed to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, his reply to which I read with great pleasure, because I thought it very pertinent, and, indeed, conclusive, as against those who addressed him. It reminds me of a famous saying of Dr. Johnson. When he was told that a fashionable preacher in his time, Dr. Dodd, who had been sentenced to death, had preached a moving and edifying sermon to his fellow-criminals in Newgate, Dr. Johnson said:
Depend upon it, Sir, that when a man is going to be hanged in a fortnight it concentrates his mind wonderfully.
Now we see the concentrated mind. I am delighted to see a full House prepared to vote against any form of extravagant administration, but the lesson I draw from this Debate is, that if you are really in earnest—I do not care by what means conversion may have been effected—in the pursuit of public economy, you should not spend your time on comparative trivialities, but get down to the root of the matter.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN (Leader of the House): I am not quite certain that I am the proper Member of this House to reply to the right hon. Gentleman, for, indeed, I am almost the only Gentleman sitting in the House for whom the right hon. Gentleman had a word of commendation. His principal purpose appears to have been to deliver his sentence on the intentions and the effect of a memorial recently presented to me by supporters of the Government. I am sorry that my right hon. Friend did not take some trouble to inform himself as to that memorial before he undertook to explain it to the House. That memorial was presented to me by one of my hon. Friends on behalf of the signatories with the express statement that they desired me to understand that the meeting out of which it arose had taken place before the question of the salary of the Minister without Portfolio had arisen, and that the memorial had no reference to the Minister without Portfolio, and the Members who signed it particularly desired me to understand that they were animated by no hostility to the Minister without Portfolio. I am glad to think that in this Debate there has been from all sides of the House a just appreciation of the work which the
Minister without Portfolio has done both during the War and since the War, and of the spirit in which he has served the Government and the country. I am not going to elaborate or add to the tribute which the Prime Minister paid to my right hon. Friend on behalf of his colleagues and himself, but I must say one word with regard to what has fallen from the right hon. Member for Paisley.
It may be that the Government ought to be very despondent and very chastened and depressed because of recent by-elections, but I confess that I do not feel myself exactly in that mood, and I cannot help thinking that the right hon. Member for Paisley must get even less comfort out of those elections than do the Government. The right hon. Gentleman cannot win a seat for his party anywhere, except by his own personal presence and superhuman exertion. He has not won a solitary seat. [HON. MEMBERS: "Yes!"] In the twenty-four elections which he thinks have gone so badly for the Government I believe he has lost one or two seats. Upon the whole I think the signs are that we shall still be here when his party has disappeared into space. The right hon. Gentleman asked why it became necessary to appoint a Minister without Portfolio when it had been determined that it was unnecessary to maintain that appointment permanently? The right hon. Gentleman goes back to conditions before the War. He habitually lives in them; he has never been able to persuade himself that there was a new world created by the War. That is why the right hon. Gentleman is sitting on that side of the House and not on this. The circumstances are not the same as before the War, the volume of work is not the same as before the War, and the strain upon the Government and upon Members of the Government is something that I believe has never been experienced in this country before. Not only so, but whereas when he appointed, very properly, my Noble Friend Lord Lansdowne as a Minister without Portfolio during the War—a Minister who refrained from accepting any salary—there was no Statutory recognition of the position which has since been given Statutory recognition by this House and Parliament. When the Secretary of State for War was appointed to the office we tried to do without the Minister without Portfolio. We found it inconvenient. There was more work than
we could perform satisfactorily, and we were driven again to have recourse to the appointment of such a Minister. The appointment was justified because of the exceptional strain; it is justified so long as that strain exists and no longer. That is the principle laid down in my right hon. Friend's speech, and it is upon that principle we are acting.

Lieut.-Colonel J. WARD: There is one aspect of this case on which I wish to address the House. I was greatly struck by, and I am bound to confess I sym-pathised with, the speech of the hon. Member for the Falls Division of Belfast (Mr. Devlin). My fears arising out of the proceedings of this afternoon were confirmed beyond the shadow of a doubt by the speech of the hon. Member for Mossley (Mr. A. Hopkinson). He made no bones about stating the reason for this attack on the Minister without Portfolio. He stated distinctly that the reason why the reactionary elements in this House, in the Press, and in the country generally, were trying to hound this Minister out of office was because he attempted to deal with the housing problem. I myself greatly fear that this "stunt" of anti-waste is being used, not so much to protect the taxpayers' pockets, as to try to avoid necessary social reforms. I was not at home when the last General Election was fought, and if I give a wrong impression of the ideas which I believe returned the majority of Members of this House, hon. Members will excuse me. Reading the reports of speeches and the manifestos of politicians on the Coalition side then, we understood that even the great conservative elements of the country who are, we know, all-powerful when aroused, and when their interests are attacked, had at last come to the conclusion that the way in which labour had sprung to the defence of the State had given labour a justification and a reason for demanding and expecting something in the nature of a decent position in the country which their bravery defended. We were told that the main object of the Coalition was that the moderate elements of all parties in the State should combine together for the purpose of making this country more like a land for heroes to live in.
Naturally it devolved upon the Ministry of Health to attempt to give this policy practical shape. I admit that at the
time the Minister of Health was confronted with an almost impossible problem. Housing at that time was in such a condition that it would have been a miracle had anyone succeeded in arriving at a solution of the problem. I know it is alleged that workmen and their wages provide the sole cause for raising the cost of building to such an enormous extent. As a Member of the Costs Committee appointed by the Ministry of Health, I know perfectly well it is not merely the wages of the workmen but the profits of the middlemen and those who supply materials which have done a great deal to make it impossible to build houses at an economic rent. The right hon. Gentleman in spite of these difficulties was bound to proceed. Public opinion outside insisted upon houses being built, and the Government of the day would have shirked their responsibility and their duty had they not at least attempted to solve this very pressing and difficult problem. If that problem had been shirked and shelved and put back, what kind of charge would have been made against the Coalition Government, and those who supported it? They would have been charged with neglecting one of the most important subjects affecting the lives of the people and one which they had put into the forefront of their political programme. The speech made by the hon. Member for the Falls Division (Mr. Devlin), in his own inimitable style, greatly amused and interested the House, but behind the whole thing I am afraid there is a serious and grim fact. I fear the conservative elements of this country, both in the Press and on the platform and generally have made up their minds as to the first attack to be made in pursuance of the anti-waste campaign, and that the main points of that attack shall be upon education, upon housing, and upon everything that tends to improve the condition of the country and makes possible the very programme upon which the overwhelming majority of the Members of this House have been elected.
I hope it is not so, because I can quite see the possible end of this agitation which at the moment has produced the resignation of the right hon. Gentleman and caused him to be thrown to the wolves. I can see what may happen if the Conservative block really is deter
mined to destroy all social reform, and to use for that end this anti-waste campaign and the few temporary reverses which have occurred. These reverses are only such as always occur when a Government has been in office for a certain time. One stunt after another may turn one election after another, but when a general election comes it is wonderful how nearly every one of these by-election representatives disappears into thin air. That block have really got the country in their hands. At the moment I am prepared to support the Coalition in the House and the country, because I believe we are passing through such a condition of things that the moderate elements of every party must stick together. If that sticking together on the part of men like myself, and others who are Liberal and Radical in politics, means that the great centre of conservatism is going to use this cohesion of advanced elements, for the purpose of destroying social reform and of setting back every attempt to improve the condition of the people on the plea of the burden that may be put upon the State, then I am certain that the time will come when those who adopt that policy for the moment because it is popular will regret it for very many serious and dark days. Once let the impression get outside to the ordinary moderate Labour man that his trade union is to be destroyed, and that his industrial power can only operate within the range of economic forces and laws, and then use political institutions, political prejudices and the enormous social influence which wealth and position give you to frustrate-any effort to improve his position, and you will create a most serious state of affairs. It certainly looks as though you intended to do that by the way in which this officer of State is being pursued, simply because he has attempted to carry out the principles on which you were elected. If you persist in doing that, a condition of affairs will have been produced, and a state of mind will have been created amongst the industrial classes which you yourselves will be the first to regret.

Captain COOTE: Though I share to some extent the apprehensions of the hon. Member for Stoke (Lieut.-Colonel J. Ward), I do not altogether despair. If he looks carefully around this House he will find that there is not in the majority of its Members that innate Toryism,
which he and I so much deplore. We have had a series of speeches this afternoon in which practically every Member has answered the question of "Who did it?"—" it" being the reduction of the salary—by saying "I did it." The whole point is that to which only one or two speakers have addressed themselves, namely, whether there is work for this Minister to do or whether there is not. The Government have made out a good case for the useful work which this Minister can do. Why then should that work so suddenly come to an end. It seems to me that if their case is good to-day, it will be good for some time to come. I am sorry that upon this question the Government have seen fit to wobble.
I quarrel with the thesis put forward by the hon. Member for Hastings (Lord E. Percy), that not only rigid departmental responsibility but also rigid departmental initiative should be insisted upon. He says that the Cabinet Committees were no good, but I totally disagree with that proposition. It is not a question of denying that a Minister should be responsible to Parliament, but of saying that he should be assisted and advised by a Cabinet Committee. In point of fact, as I understand it, what these Cabinet Committees do is to clarify and present in an easily digestible form various items of information upon vitally important subjects, thus fulfilling a most necessary function. In the last resort, it is the Minister himself who has to co-ordinate these reports and present the resulting legislation to Parliament. He is still just as responsible to Parliament as he would have been if there was no Cabinet Committee. I dissent from those who say that the necessity for Cabinet Committees has disappeared, and, for the life of me, I cannot see why the necessity for this particular office should disappear in the course of a few months.

7.0 P.M.

Mr. E. HARMS WORTH: The hon. Member for Stoke (Lieut.-Colonel Ward) accused those who are associated with the anti-waste of shouting for economy on one or two questions only. I may remind him that the call upon which we won the by-elections was that there should be retrenchment in every single department of State with the exceptions of the pensions and the war debt, and our demand for economy was not in reference to any
special item. I should like to state on behalf of those who are allied on the anti-waste issue that in pressing this particular matter we are doing so with absolutely no animus against the right hon. Gentleman. I have never, I do not now, and I never shall attack him personally. Although I have regarded him as one of the master spenders in the past, I have never objected to him in a personal sense. I listened very carefully to the speech of the Prime Minister. He told us that the right hon. Gentleman the Minister without Portfolio was chairman of four committees of the Cabinet. Every hon. Member in the House knows when Committes are set up that there are chairmen elected, and some hon. Members sit as chairman of many committees, but they do not get paid. Why should a salary of £5,000 a year be paid to the Minister without Portfolio who merely presides at Cabinet committees which look into various matters? One of these committees, we were told strangely enough, was a committee appointed to put a check on the increase of rates. It seems an extraordinary anomaly that the right hon. Gentleman who is responsible as much as any other Minister for the increase of rates should subsequently be put on a committee of the Cabinet to look into the question of how they can be decreased: in other words, to try and check his own mistakes.
I regard this Vote as an example of the spirit of the Government. I think I am right in saying that the Government is composed of more Ministers than any other Government in our history. I should have thought enough Departments had been created since 1914 to satisfy any Government in history, but it appears there must be a Minister without Portfolio, and so this office has been created at a salary of £5,000 a year. I admit that salary is very small in comparison with the sums with which the Government is apt to deal, but it is a very large sum to many of the overburdened taxpayers of this country. It is more than the actual amount; it is a sample of the whole spirit of the Government. How can the Government force economy on the Departments and cut down waste when in the Ministry itself there is a glaring example? I see that the staffs of the Government Departments have actually risen during the past
month. Is it any wonder that that is the ease when in the ranks of the Government itself there is this Minister without Portfolio with a salary of £5,000 a year? I have thought over this question to see if I could discover any cause for satisfaction from the position of the Minister without Portfolio. There is only one cause far satisfaction that I can see, and that is that the Minister without Portfolio, in his present office, can spend very little, whereas when he was in charge of a great Department he spent a great deal.
I should like to point out why this special Vote has caused such a fury in the country, and why the people have caught on to this Vote more than any other. It is because it represents the way in which the Government have wasted, and still are wasting, money in the desert sands of Mesopotamia and Palestine, in so-called social reform schemes after the War which the nation cannot afford, and in bureaucratic expansion, at a time when the trade of the country has never been so bad or taxation so high, and after a war which has-consumed the national resources. These are the reasons why the people of this country have clutched at this Vote and why public opinion has been so focussed upon it. It is because it represents the whole spirit of the Government and of all those matters which I have mentioned in which the Government has failed to economise. That is why I and others who think like me will, when a reduction of the Vote is moved, vote for the reduction.

Mr. W. GREENWOOD: I listened to the speech of the Prime Minister, and we were asked many times not to be intimidated at all in our attitude to-day by what was going on outside. I think that was very well-considered advice, but I am sorry to say that on this occasion the Prime Minister himself has been intimidated into doing something which, in his heart of hearts, I do not think he really intended to do or would like to do. I would support the Vote for this Minister, and exactly on the same grounds as those advocated by many hon. Members who have spoken, and especially the last hon. Member (Mr. Harmsworth), who opposed it, namely, that of economy. The last speaker rightly mentioned that the country was fastening on this particular expenditure of £5,000 a year for the
Minister without Portfolio, and that it was being interpreted in the country in perhaps a ruder and rougher way by the saying that £100 a week was being wasted. I think, in that sense, the hon. Member interpreted the feeling of the country quite rightly, but, in my opinion, those in the country who look at the matter from that narrow point of view, as the hon. Member himself does, are entirely wrong. I believe, as was suggested by the Prime Minister, that the Minister without Portfolio was absolutely necessary to help the Government during the very trying times through which they have been passing in the last three months. It has been said by many hon. Members that had we had the privilege of obtaining the assistance of the Prime Minister many weeks before we were able to do so, that the long and lamentable struggle in the coal trade either would not have taken place at all or, if it had occurred, would have been ended much sooner.
When we talk about waste, do we think about the waste that is going on at the present time through the lack of production in our industries? Talk about £5,000 a year, you may well say that we strain at a gnat and swallow a camel. At the present time we ought to be producing £10,000,000 worth of coal per week, but we are producing practically none. Why do not we talk a little about the waste that is going on there? How is it that there are no questions from hon. Members as to when there will be another meeting between the miners and the owners, to see if there is any other way to a settlement than by fighting to the death about this thing? Where is the interest of hon. Members in economy in regard to a matter of that sort? If it had been possible for the Prime Minister to give more time to a subject like that and to deal with other essentials through having a Minister without Portfolio then it has been money very well spent and very easily earned. It is necessary that these men in the Cabinet should be able to devote their time to the most essential matters which require attention not only in our home politics, but also in our foreign politics. I would ask hon. Members not to look upon these things from too narrow a point of view. I regret very much that the Prime Minister has stated that at the end of this Session he will dispense with this Minister. There is no doubt that if the
right hon. Gentleman was indispensable a few weeks ago and if he is indispensable now he will be indispensable at the end of this Session. How do we know that things are going to improve so much as we all expect and desire? The Prime Minister says trade will be better at the end of the Session. I hope he will prove to be a good prophet and that it will turn out to be true. It is, however, a singular thing that those who prophesy so much about an improvement in our trade are nearly always those who know the least about it and are least connected with it. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh, oh!"] What I mean is that nobody knows when you are in the soup so much as you yourself when you are up to the neck in it. I could give you instances of what I mean, but I do not wish to weary the House. "What I want to point out is that we ought not to look too much to an expenditure of £5,000 a year and to allow it to obscure our vision with regard to higher and more important things.
I have a great deal of sympathy for the right hon. Gentleman the Minister without Portfolio, who, if the Prime Minister sticks to his word—I hope he will withdraw it—will vacate this position. I sympathise especially in regard to his policy in the building of houses. The firm with which I am connected were the first to build houses in the town of Oldham and the houses were the first to be occupied. We were forced by the pressure of circumstances to build when prices were high. We built houses which cost us about £1,050 each and which are now worth £700. I realise the difficulty the right hon. Gentleman had to face with regard to that, and he has my sincerest sympathy. I hope that the friendship and faithfulness to his colleague which the Prime Minister has shown will be extended to a greater degree than has been the case in his speech this afternoon, and that he will continue, as a means of true economy, to keep this office in existence even after this Session, and in spite of all the protests and intimidations, so long as about half the people in this country who ought to be working are out of work.

Mr. SWAN: There is no reason why hon. Members of the Labour party ought to join in a pæon of praise to the Minister without Portfolio although, if we do criticise the Vote or Divide against it, it will not be because we have any dis-
respect for the right hon. Gentleman himself. I should think there are very few Members in the House who have been more faithful to the late Minister for Health than we have in supporting him when he was trying to pass his Measures of reconstruction, and to carry out the policy which he and his Government were returned to power to achieve. What have we found? We found, although we acted loyally by him to achieve that reconstruction, that the only Members on whom he could depend to assist him were the Members of the Labour party and a few Radicals, and he had up against him a hostile section belonging to his own party. We would like to have seen the right hon. Gentleman, as a protest against the treatment which was continually meted out to him, assert his dignity and resign 12 months ago, as a protest against the reaction which was settling down on this House.
We cannot quite understand the desire for economy in the party opposite. We ourselves are very anxious for economy. The protagonist of the economy party in the House suggested that the two things which they would desire chiefly not to economise upon were the National Debt and pensions. We are not desirous of economising on pensions, as we think in a very large measure they are insufficient and that by adding to them you would effect a great humane economy in this country; but as far as the National Debt is concerned, members of the Labour party have repeatedly put forward a policy which we believe would have been of great economic value to this nation in reducing that Debt without injuring any individual in the country, and instead of us being stranged industrially as we are with these great burdens, the amount that would have been saved by the policy we advocated could have been utilised to carry out the reforms for urging which the right hon. Member the Minister without Portfolio was so ruthlessly hounded out of office by certain hon. Members. I believe there is a great deal of truth in what was said by the hon. and gallant Member for Stoke (Lieut.-Colonel J. Ward), that there has come about a disintegration and a division in the Coalition party on the question of the desirability of carrying out the pledges upon which the Government were returned to power. Three years ago appeals by responsible public men were made to the nation for unity, so as to
banish out of this country all the social evils from which we were suffering, but instead of unity of all the best in this nation, we see that party strife has again demonstrated itself in this Vote.
If any section of this House has substantial grounds on which to protest against the policy of the Government, it is the Labour party. We sat for three weeks last year, with others, with the right hon. Gentleman who was then Minister of Health, discussing the Ministry of Health Bill, expecting that the Government were going to honour their pledges, so that we could repair the injured who returned from the War by assisting, to build hospitals, which would have been a great economy instead of being a charge on the community, but what did we find? When the Minister attempted to put forward these beneficent proposals, we found that the hon. Members opposite most vigorously opposed every Measure to establish any social amenities. We believe that if the present Minister without Portfolio had been allowed, when at the Ministry of Health, to go forward with his schemes, instead of being the failure that many hon. Members say he was, he would have done great good, but his inability to do so was due to the hostile and unfair criticism with which he was met and to the lack of support he got from Members of his own party. When we hear the Prime Minister making his statement as to the great economy which the right hon. Gentleman effected while at the Ministry of Munitions, how he saved the nation hundreds of millions of pounds by setting up the system of costings and national factories, we suggest that if the same policy had been pursued while he was at the Ministry of Health, houses would have been built more rapidly, and a larger number would have been built at a substantially less cost to the community, and without our having to subsidise certain sections of the building trade, and thus adding to the Debt of this country. The right hon. Gentleman was beset with difficulties, not only arising out of the five years of war, but he had a heritage to face of a hundred years of legislation and administration in this House by the orthodox political parties who preceded the Coalition, and if he had had that support to which he was entitled in a substantial measure, things would have been very different.
but he was frustrated by people who did well out of the War, the very people who want to maintain the Debt which is strangling the industry of the country and making it impossible to carry out the reconstruction policy.
If our counsels had been listened to, we would have had the Debt reduced by at least half, and saved as interest on Debt approximately £200,000,000, and that money could have been used for the better education of our people and for building better homes. Hon. Members talk about economy, but we have suggested that some of this wealth, instead of being wasted in Ireland or Mesopotamia—

The CHAIRMAN: I think the hon. Gentleman is getting rather wide of the point. He is entitled to talk of the work of the right hon. Gentleman at the Ministry of Health, but he is not entitled to talk about other matters as he was proceeding to do.

Mr. SWAN: I have no intention of making wide digressions, but we criticise the Government's failure to carry out its pledges and the manner in which it has wasted wealth which might have been utilised in developing our resources. We have appealed repeatedly that money might be set aside so that land might be developed, so that—

The CHAIRMAN: That has nothing to do either with the present work of the Minister without Portfolio or with his work at the Ministry of Health.

Mr. SWAN: I do not want to follow the policy which many hon. Members have followed in traversing the whole field, but we have got legitimate grounds of complaint against the Departmental work and the policy of this House, and we want to save every penny that can possibly be saved, in order that the Government might honour the pledges that it gave to the country three years ago. We want to see every penny utilised so that our children might have better opportunities in life than we had, so that their minds might be trained and developed—

The CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member is again going beyond the scope of the discussion. It is in order to speak about the housing question in so far as it concerns the present Minister without Portfolio, but we really cannot go into these other wide fields.

Mr. SWAN: One of the reasons for our criticism is that the nation is deprived of wealth which could be more wisely used in other channels. While the right hon. Gentleman was the Minister of Health, hon. Members who criticised the Labour party endeavoured day in and day out to make it absolutely impossible for him to function.

Captain BOWYER: Is the hon. Member speaking in favour of the Minister without Portfolio?

Mr. SWAN: We are speaking against the policy of the Government, because many Members opposite have made it impossible for him to function and carry out the pledges which were made. We hope there will be a better spirit manifested in this House than we have seen to-day and in days gone by, and we are anxious to join with the Government when it is out to achieve progress. The situation reminds me of a story of the North Country, where a policeman was set to be the custodian of a certain bridge at Newcastle. A young lady came along and said to him, "Which is the way to Gateshead?" The policeman replied, "Ower the bridge to Gateshead, hinny." "But," said the young lady, "I've got these parcels and luggage." "It doesn't matter, hinny," said the policeman, "whether you have got a wooden leg and an iron foot, it's ower the bridge to Gateshead, hinny." It is the same with the late Minister of Health. If there is anyone who comes and wants to put forward a useful reform in this House, he will find certain people who are more interested in the welfare, of the few than in the general welfare of the community, and he will have to get out of office if he wants to function for the general welfare.

Mr. G. BARNES: There has been a great deal of unnecessary heat imported into the Debate and a great deal of irrelevance. Comparisons have been made as between the £4,500 on this Vote and the hundreds of millions which have been expended elsewhere. To my mind that has nothing at all to do with it. If the expenditure elsewhere is justified then these things can stand upon their own legs and be judged on their merits. Therefore I pass from that. It has also been suggested that the Minister is being criticised because he is responsible for the housing policy of the Government. I have no knowledge of that. I have not heard any-
body on the Floor of the House say to-night they had any knowledge; it has been a supposition. If it is the fact that the Minister has been criticised because he has stood for social reconstruction, and if that impression has been conveyed outside to anybody by the speeches that have been made here, then this Debate may do a good deal of harm in the country. I hope that impression will not be created.

Mr. R. RICHARDSON: It has been said.

Mr. BARNES: So far as I know, there is no justification for it. Therefore I appeal to the House just to consider this question fairly and squarely upon its merits, and the merits of the thing are to my mind within a very narrow compass. The simple question before the House is, whether or not this expenditure of £4,500 is justified? I believe it is. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Paisley (Mr. Asquith) told us a little while ago that the War was over and that therefore we might get back to pre-War conditions. We may get back to pre-War conditions sometime or other—I hope so— but it will not be in my lifetime. I feel quite sure of that. The right hon. Gentleman seemed to think, at all events, he wanted to convey the impression to the House that, the War being over, we might now return to the same conditions of political life as in 1914. As a matter of fact we cannot. The War has upset the world. The War has shaken everybody out of their accustomed groove. The War has more or less given us all neurasthenia, and as a consequence life is more complicated and more difficult in every branch than it was in 1913. That is nowhere more marked than in the Government. That brings me to the few observations I intended to make, though I may have been a long time in getting there.
I happened to be a Member of the Cabinet for some considerable time as a Minister without Portfolio. I believe that it would not have been bad for the Government and the country to have had two or three more Ministers with Portfolio while the War was on. I will tell the Committee why. Because those Ministers who were charged with the great duty of carrying on the War, and at the same time looking to the interests of the country at home, had got too much on their minds and on their hands; and it would have been a great thing for the
country and for everybody concerned if these men could have had a little more time to think. The same thing has gone on since the War was finished. As a matter of fact, I have been in pretty close touch with the Minister of Health while the right hon. Gentleman was in that office, as well as in touch with the Minister of Labour, in regard to certain matters which I need not now mention. What did I find? I found that both these hon. Gentlemen were immersed in detailed work, and therefore they could not give their attention to the matters. I am afraid I could not even get time from them to get what I desired into their minds so that they might be seized with the importance of certain things I wanted to put to them. It seems to me, therefore, if we had now another Minister without Portfolio, as well as the right hon. Gentleman who is now under discussion, that we should get value for the additional expenditure.
It was said by the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Asquith) that not only was the War over, and, therefore, it was desirable to return to pre-War conditions, but he attacked the principle of the office of Minister without Portfolio on constitutional ground's. He told us that the House of Commons was an assembly to which the Departments were responsible, and that the Minister at the head of a Department was necessarily personally responsible. As was afterwards pointed out by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House, that has been recognised as the difficulty in fixing up Ministers without Portfolio, and special legislation has been passed. It seems to me, however, it would not matter if there were two or three other Ministers without Portfolio, for the man at the head of a Department would still be responsible. It makes no difference in that respect. What I do say, however, is, that affaire now are so complicated, Government is so difficult, we have all these questions of industry and many other things which did not occupy the minds of Ministers before the War as they do now, and that being so, I believe it would be a good thing for the House and for the country to have Ministers at the head of affairs who are relieved to some extent from detailed work by being assisted by those who have no special Department to look after and who could
give valuable advice based upon experience and knowledge. All that, then, I say, is a justification for the expenditure which is now challenged.
In conclusion, I have to express my sincere regret that the Prime Minister has capitulated to a miserable newspaper stunt, because, after all, it has been a capitulation. I do not want to hurt the feelings of my right hon. Friend who is sitting on the Front Bench (Dr. Addison), but I would feel rather sore if I were in the position he occupies to-day. The Prime Minister made a very handsome statement in regard to his past services. He told the House that the ex-Minister of Health had saved the country hundreds of millions of pounds. But he did not say in a single sentence that the Minister without Portfolio was not now necessary and would not be necessary in the future. While eulogising his right hon. Friend for past services and telling us of the onerous duties that attach to him at present, the Prime Minister at the same time said he was going to get the sack in two or three months. I am sorry for that. The ex-Minister of Health has had a lot of experience in government during the last 12 or 14 years. Believing, as I do, that the Minister without Portfolio is a necessary adjunct to the Government, it seems to me that we could not have had a better man in the post than he. I am sorry that he has been sacrificed to an agitation which was not directed so much against him, but which had for its simple aim and object, an agitation first against the Government, and then, as suggested by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Stoke, a little also, I am afraid, against the expenditure of public money upon the best of all services—those connected with the health and education of our people.

Mr. WALLACE: I am not altogether in accord with the right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down. I do not wish to see any addition to the Ministers without Portfolio, because in a general way I am opposed to the multiplication of officials. The Government has come to a certain decision announced by the Prime Minister, and I intend in this matter to support the Government in the line they have taken. I think it is a very good thing that we have had the question of economy raised to-day in the House. This discussion will do good. I wish to discuss economy, but I do want to discuss it on something like
wide and broad lines, and with some sense of proportion. I suggest that the Debate to-day is altogether out of proportion in the question we are considering. There has been a certain amount of acrimony introduced into the Debate. I wish to say that however easy it is to criticise my right hon. Friend when he was Minister of Health that he had to face an extremely difficult task. That task called for the highest and very best energies in the administrative class of individuals. There are people who always find it easy to criticise those who do more work than they themselves do. I hope the time is far distant when this House of Commons will lack loyalty to the men who have rendered the country distinguished public service as my right hon. Friend has done. That is all I have to say in relation to the Minister without Portfolio.
I do, however, want to raise one other point which is, I think, relevant, and that is the amount of salary attached to the office. The Minister without Portfolio receives £5,000 a year. We have a distinguished Minister sitting on that Bench not without Portfolio, but with four or five Portfolios, who only gets £2,000 a year. I refer to the Secretary for Scotland, a man who combines in his own office many important Ministerial functions. He has a salary less than that attached to the Minister without Portfolio. The right hon. Gentleman to whom I refer is Minister of Education, Minister of Agriculture, and Minister of Health. I do suggest that he is one of the ablest Scottish Secretaries that we have ever had. He is invariably accessible to Members and is always courteous.

The CHAIRMAN: The hon. Gentleman is not in order in discussing the merits of the Secretary for Scotland. The question before us is the salary of the Minister without Portfolio.

Mr. WALLACE: I will bow to your ruling, and I am exceedingly sorry that I have gone beyond the province of this Debate. I shall not pursue further the arguments I intended to use had it not been for your intervention. I would finish with this one remark: In paying salaries to Members of the Cabinet I want to know whether the Cabinet consider that the English race is much better than the Scottish race. I do not, however, wish to pursue that very inviting
subject after your ruling. I hope, however, the point I have raised will not be lost sight of by the Leader of the House.

Captain BOWYER: I want to lodge my protest against the speech of the Prime Minister. I want to submit to the Committee that the Prime Minister when he was making his speech, instead of facing the Opposition, turned round to his own supporters, and the plea I want to make to the Government is a plea for some support of the back bench Members of the party. I am aware that if the Prime Minister were present he would not even know who I am or whom I represented, but I wish to say that we came down here not knowing what the task of the Minister without Portfolio was. I have received resolution after resolution protesting against the administration of the right hon. Gentleman in his late capacity as Minister for Health, which I sent on to him, and I did so without any ill-feeling. I think the right hon. Gentleman will recall the fact that he wrote to me and said that he thought they were ill-advised and intemperate resolutions. What I want to know is, why the Prime Minister or the Government did not approach their own supporters and say, "We have these good reasons why you should support us in this appointment"? Why did they leave it until the last day in an uncertain state as regards the facts, and why did not the Prime Minister address his own supporters, who want to burst with loyalty to their leader, and tell them the fact. The Prime Minister now comes forward and says this is a matter of confidence and I want your loyalty, but what I claim is that if the right hon. Gentleman is going to lead properly, he should take us more into his confidence, and not put us in the position in which we find ourselves to-day, and this is not the first time it has happened. The right hon. Gentleman ought to have let us know the full facts of the case long before this Debate came on, because there are many insignificant supporters of the Government who wish to support the Government, but who hate being put into the position in which we now find ourselves.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."

Question put, "That the Question be now put".

"The Committee divided: Ayes, 250; Noes, 40.

Division No. 193.]
AYES.
[750 p.m.


Adair, Rear-Admiral Thomas B. S.
Foxcroft, Captain Charles Talbot
Marriott, John Arthur Ransome


Addison, Rt. Hon. Dr. Christopher
Fraser, Major Sir Keith
Martin, A. E.


Amery, Leopold C. M. S.
Ganzoni, Sir John
Mitchell, William Lane


Archer-Shee, Lieut.-Colonel Martin
Gardiner, James
Molson, Major John Elsdale


Armitage, Robert
Geddes, Rt. Hon. Sir E. (Camb'dge)
Montagu, Rt. Hon. E. S.


Ashley, Colonel Wilfrid W.
Gee, Captain Robert
Moreing, Captain Algernon H.


Bagley, Captain E. Ashton
George, Rt. Hon. David Lloyd
Morison, Rt. Hon. Thomas Brash


Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Gibbs, Colonel George Abraham
Morris, Richard


Balfour, George (Hampstead)
Gilbert, James Daniel
Morrison-Bell, Major A. C.


Banner, Sir John S. Harmood-
Gilmour, Lieut.-Colonel Sir John
Mosley, Oswald


Barlow, Sir Montague
Gould, James C.
Munro, Rt. Hon. Robert


Barnes, Rt. Hon. G. (Glas., Gorbals)
Grayson, Lieut.-Colonel Sir Henry
Murray, C. D. (Edinburgh)


Barnett, Major Richard W.
Green, Albert (Derby)
Murray, Hon. Gideon (St. Rollox)


Barnston, Major Harry
Green, Joseph F. (Leicester, W.)
Murray, John (Leeds, West)


Barrand, A. R.
Greene, Lt.-Col. Sir W. (Hack'y, N.)
Nail, Major Joseph


Bell, Lieut. Col. W C. H. (Devizes)
Greenwood, Colonel Sir Hamar
Neal, Arthur


Bellairs, Commander Carlyon W.
Greer, Harry
Newman, sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)


Benn, Sir A. S. (Plymouth, Drake)
Gregory, Holman
Nicholl, Commander Sir Edward


Benn, Capt. Sir I. H., Bart. (Gr'nw'h)
Greig, Colonel Sir James William
Nicholson, Reginald (Doncaster)


Betterton, Henry B.
Guest, Capt. Rt. Hon. Frederick E.
Nicholson, William G. (Petersfield)


Bigland, Alfred
Guinness, Lieut.-Col. Hon. W. E.
Norman, Major Rt. Hon. Sir. Henry


Birchall, Major J. Dearman
Gwynne, Rupert S.
Norris, Colonel Sir Henry G.


Bird, Sir A. (Wolverhampton, West)
Hacking, Captain Douglas H.
Oman, Sir Charles William C.


Blades, Sir George Rowland
Hambro, Angus Valdemar
Palmer, Brigadier-General G. L.


Blair, Sir Reginald
Hamilton, Major C. G. C.
Parker, James


Borwick, Major G. O.
Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry
Parry, Lieut.-Colonel Thomas Henry


Boscawen, Rt. Hon. Sir A. Griffith-
Harmsworth, C. B. (Bedford, Luton)
Pease, Rt. Hon. Herbert Pike


Bowles, Colonel H. F.
Harmsworth, Hon. E. C. (Kent)
Peel, Col. Hn. S. (Uxbridge, Middx.)


Bowyer, Captain G. W. E.
Harris, Sir Henry Percy
Pennefather, De Fonblanque


Boyd-Carpenter, Major A.
Haslam, Lewis
Perring, William George


Breese, Major Charles E.
Henry, Denis S. (Londonderry, S.)
Pollock, Sir Ernest Murray


Bridgeman, Rt. Hon. William Clive
Hickman, Brig.-General Thomas E.
Polson, Sir Thomas A.


Brittain, Sir Harry
Higham, Charles Frederick
Pownall, Lieut.-Colonel Assheton


Britton, G. B.
Hoare, Lieut.-Colonel Sir S. J. G.
Pratt, John William


Broad, Thomas Tucker
Hohler, Gerald Fitzroy
Preston, W. R.


Brown, Major D. C.
Holbrook, Sir Arthur Richard
Prescott, Major W. H.


Buchanan, Lieut.-Colonel A. L. H.
Hope, Sir H.(Stirling &Cl'ckm'nn'n,W.)
Purchase, H. G.


Buckley, Lieut.-Colonel A.
Hopkins, John W. W.
Randles, Sir John Scurrah


Carr, W. Theodore
Hopkinson, A. (Lancaster, Mossley)
Rees, Sir J. D. (Nottingham, East)


Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. A.(Birm., W.)
Home, Edgar (Surrey, Guildford)
Rees, Capt. J. Tudor (Barnstaple)


Cheyne, Sir William Watson
Horne, Sir R. S. (Glasgow, Hillhead)
Remnant, Sir James


Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S.
Hotchkin, Captain Stafford Vere
Richardson, Alexander (Gravesend)


Clough, Robert
Hunter-Weston, Lieut.-Gen. Sir A. G.
Roberts, Rt. Hon. G. H. (Norwich)


Cobb, Sir Cyril
Hurd, Percy A.
Roberts, Samuel (Hereford, Hereford)


Cockerill, Brigadier-General G. K.
Jackson, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. F. S.
Robinson, S. (Brecon and Radnor)


Cohen, Major J. Brunei
James, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. Cuthbert
Robinson, Sir T. (Lancs, Stretford)


Colfox, Major Wm. Phillips
Jameson, John Gordon
Rothschild, Lionel de


Colvin, Brig.-General Richard Beale
Jephcott, A. R.
Royden, Sir Thomas


Conway, Sir W. Martin
Jodrell, Neville Paul
Royds, Lieut.-Colonel Edmund


Coote, Colin Reith (Isle of Ely)
Johnstone, Joseph
Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)


Cope, Major William
Jones, Sir Edgar R. (Merthyr Tydvil)
Sanders, Colonel Sir Robert Arthur


Cory, Sir J. H. (Cardiff, South)
Jones, Sir Evan (Pembroke)
Sassoon, Sir Philip Albert Gustave D.


Craik, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry
Jones, G. W. H. (Stoke Newington)
Scott, Leslie (Liverpool, Exchange)


Curzon, Captain Viscount
Jones, J. T. (Carmarthen, Llanelly)
Seager, Sir William


Davidson, Major-General Sir J. H.
Joynson-Hicks, Sir William
Seely, Major-General Rt. Hon. John


Davies, Alfred Thomas (Lincoln)
Kellaway, Rt. Hon. Fredk. George
Shaw, Hon. Alex. (Kilmarnock)


Davies, Thomas (Cirencester)
Kidd, James
Shaw, Capt. William T. (Forfar)


Davies, Sir William H. (Bristol, S.)
King, Captain Henry Douglas
Shortt, Rt. Hon. E. (N'castle-on-T.)


Davison, Sir W. H. (Kensington, S.)
Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement
Simm, M. T.


Dean, Lieut.-Commander P. T.
Knights, Capt. H. N. (C'berwell, N.)
Smith, Sir Allan M. (Croydon, South)


Denniss, Edmund R. B. (Oldham)
Lane-Fox, G. R.
Stanier, Captain Sir Beville


Dewhurst, Lieut.-Commander Harry
Law, Alfred J. (Rochdale)
Stanley, Major Hon. G. (Preston)


Dockrell, Sir Maurice
Lewis, Rt. Hon. J. H. (Univ., Wales)
Steel, Major S. Strang


Doyle, N. Grattan
Lister, Sir R. Ashton
Stephenson, Lieut.-Colonel H. K.


Edge, Captain William
Lloyd-Greame, Sir P.
Stewart, Gershom


Edwards, Hugh (Glam., Neath)
Locker-Lampson, Com. O. (H'tingd'n)
Sturrock, J. Leng


Elliot, Capt. Walter E. (Lanark)
Lorden, John William
Sueter, Murray Fraser


Elliott, Lt.-Col. Sir G. (Islington, W.)
Loseby, Captain C. E.
Taylor, J.


Erskine, James Malcolm Monteith
Lowther, Major C. (Cumberland, N.)
Thomas-Stanford, Charles


Evans, Ernest
McLaren, Hon. H. D. (Leicester)
Tickler, Thomas George


Eyres-Monsell, Com. Bolton M.
McLaren, Robert (Lanark, Northern)
Tryon, Major George Clement


Falle, Major Sir Bertram Godfray
M'Lean, Lieut.-Col. Charles W. W.
Waddington, R.


Farquharson, Major A. C.
Macleod, J. Mackintosh
Wallace, J.


Fell, Sir Arthur
McMicking, Major Gilbert
Ward-Jackson, Major C. L.


Fildes, Henry
Macnamara, Rt. Hon. Dr. T. J.
Ward, Col. J. (Stoke-upon-Trent)


FitzRoy, Captain Hon. Edward A.
Macpherson, Rt. Hon. James I.
Ward, Col. L. (Kingston-upon-Hull)


Flannery, Sir James Fortescue
Maddocks, Henry
Ward, William Dudley (Southampton)


Foreman, Sir Henry
Maitland, Sir Arthur D. steel-
Waring, Major Walter


Forrest, Walter
Malone, Major P. B. (Tottenham, S.)
White, Col. G. D. (Southport)


Wild, Sir Ernest Edward
Wood, Hon. Edward F. L. (Ripon)
Young, Sir Frederick W. (Swindon)


Williams, Col. Sir R. (Dorset, W.)
Wood, Sir H. K. (Woolwich, West)



Wills, Lt.-Col. Sir Gilbert Alan H.
Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Wilson-Fox, Henry
Yate, Colonel Sir Charles Edward
Colonel Leslie Wilson and Mr.


Winfrey, Sir Richard
Yeo, Sir Alfred William
McCurdy.


Wise, Frederick
Young, E. H. (Norwich)



NOES.


Barker, G. (Monmouth, Abertillery)
Hartshorn, Vernon
Swan, J. E.


Barnes, Major H. (Newcastle, E.)
Hayday, Arthur
Terrell, Captain R. (Oxford, Henley)


Briant, Frank
Hayward, Evan
Thomas, Sir Robert J. (Wrexham)


Cairns, John
Hodge, Rt. Hon. John
Thomson, T. (Middlesbrough, West)


Cape, Thomas
Hogge, James Myles
Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton, E.)


Cecil, Rt. Hon. Lord R. (Hitchin)
Holmes, J. Stanley
Waterson, A. E.


Cooper, Sir Richard Ashmole
Irving, Dan
Wedgwood, Colonel Josiah C.


Davies, Major D. (Montgomery)
Jesson, C.
Williams, Aneurin (Durham, Consett)


Galbraith, Samuel
Morgan, Major D. Watts
Wilson, Rt. Hon. J. W. (Stourbridge)


Glanville, Harold James
Murray, Dr. D. (Inverness & Ross)
Wood, Major M. M. (Aberdeen, C.)


Gritten, W. G. Howard
Newbould, Alfred Ernest



Grundy, T. W.
Rattan, Peter Wilson
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Hall, F. (York W.R., Normanton)
Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)
Colonel Penry Williams and Mr.


Hallas, Eldred
Royce, William Stapleton
Myers.


Halls, Walter
Seddon, J. A.



Question, "That item AA be reduced by £2,500," put accordingly, and agreed to.

Motion made, and Question,
That, a sum, not exceeding £40,089 (including a Supplementary sum of £3,550), be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1922, for the Salary of the Minister without Portfolio, and Salaries and Expenses of the Cabinet Offices and of the Committee of Imperial Defence, including the cost of preparation of War Histories,
put, and agreed to.

TREASURY AND SUBORDINATE DEPARTMENTS.

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £235,388, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1922, for the Salaries and other Expenses in the Department of His Majesty's Treasury and Subordinate Departments."—[Note.— £150,000 has been voted on account.]

Mr. HAYWARD: I beg to move, "That Item A (1) (Salaries to the Parliamentary Secretaries to the Treasury) be reduced by £2,000."
8.0 P.M.
I must admit that I have some little difficulty as to the way in which to approach this subject, in view of the discussion which has just taken place, and more particularly in view of the speech of the Prime Minister. I do not know whether, in moving this reduction, I shall be pushing a door which is already open. I do not know whether the reforming zeal for economy which has just been shown by the Government will find further expression in the reduction which I have
moved. Whatever the case for the reduction which the Government have just accepted might be, I think there can be no question that there is an infinitely stronger case for their accepting the present reduction. Not only, according to the speech of the Prime Minister, but according to the speeches of most hon. Members who have spoken, the Minister without Portfolio has been performing onerous, responsible, and heavy duties of an official character. The Prime Minister catalogued various Committees which the Minister without Portfolio had to work upon, and indicated that other Ministers were so overloaded that it was necessary to have someone in that capacity to perform those duties. The Prime Minister never once sugested that one of the Patronage Secretaries to the Treasury should be called in to perform those duties. Why was that? The House perfectly well knows the predominating duties of the Patronage Secretaries to the Treasury are duties in respect of the party machine. Their official duties are of an unimportant character, and, as n matter of fact, they are not chosen for the post of Patronage Secretary to the Treasury on account of their qualifications for that post.
It is true they are gentlemen who stand very high indeed in the estimation both of the Leader of their party and of their party all round, and it is for that reason and that qualification for management and maintenance of the party machine that they are primarily chosen. As I had the opportunity of saying a day or two ago, when I had the honour to introduce a Bill dealing with this matter, during the War there was some kind of justification
for an additional Patronage Secretary. There was this justification, that during that time the Patronage Secretaries were not performing duties of political character at all, but were performing duties relating to war work and public work of one kind and another. That has all ceased, and on the grounds of economy I hold, and I hope the Committee will be with me, that the time has come to revert to the pre-War practice. One might ask, where are the 180 Members who in their reforming zeal were so intent on abolishing the Office of Minister without Portfolio?

Major C. LOWTHER: There are several of us here.

Mr. HAYWARD: There are several hon. Members belonging to the Anti-Waste Party here, but where are the 180 Members who were so desirous of getting rid of the office of Minister without Portfolio?

Mr. G. LOCKER-LAMPSON: May I interrupt my hon. Friend? I am sure he does not want to misrepresent the 180 gentleman who signed the memorial. That memorial had really nothing whatever to do with the Minister without Portfolio; we had not that in our minds.

Mr. HAYWARD: Whether they had or not—

Notice taken that 40 Members were not present; Committee counted, and 40 Members being present—

Mr. HAYWARD: I welcome most strongly this new-found enthusiasm for economy, and I am going to give hon. Members the opportunity of giving expression to this new-found zeal of theirs. It is not new-found on the part of my hon. Friend (Mr. Godfrey Locker-Lampson), I admit. I do not suggest for one moment that the right hon. Gentlemen who at present occupy the responsible position of Patronage Secretaries to the Treasury are not exceedingly hard-worked. I believe if they are successful in carrying out their duties, no one could be more actively engaged than they. I gave the House one or two illustrations of the heavy duties which devolved upon them the other day. I have looked up and found some more. We have it from one authority that every day the Chief Whip "must perform wonders of affa-
bility, of patience, and of firmness in view of the object which is the dream of a Whip's whole existence, to keep the party united, compact, and in fighting order." I readily admit that under the circumstances of the present day that is no easy task, and no enviable task for right hon. Gentlemen opposite. Then I find it laid down that among his other duties the Chief Whip "nips revolts in the bud." Again, no easy and certainly no enviable task under present circumstances. Then there is the old definition of a Chief Whip's task as defined by Canning, which is "to make a House, to keep a House, and to cheer the Minister." I should like to make this observation, that the Minister must indeed be in a bad way if, in addition to the extraordinarily genial right hon. Gentlean whom I see opposite (Colonel L. Wilson), he requires a further Chief Whip to keep him sweet and cheerful. Those duties are very important, I admit. I admit they are even of public importance, but I maintain they are not duties for which the public and the taxpayer should be called upon to pay. As I admitted the other day there are official duties and ample official duties to justify the appointment of one Patronage Secretary, but not two, and in the interests of economy and in order to maintain that principle that no public funds shall be used for party purposes, I beg to move the reduction of this Vote by £2,000.

Dr. MURRAY: I do not think I can say I have much pleasure in supporting the Motion to reduce this Vote, because no one should express pleasure in depriving any right hon. Gentleman of his salary. It hurts one's feelings to do it, but although it is a painful duty there are times, especially when one gets lessons in economy from 180 Members that one feels compelled to undertake this disagreeable duty. One would rather not do it, and I would not like to meet any of these right hon. Gentlemen in the Lobby. I do not see that there is any necessity now for these two offices. At one time they were supported on the ground that we had two parties supporting the Government. Now the Leader of the House said very definitely from that Box only a few days ago that there is only one party now in the House on which the Government rely. That statement, coming from the right hon. Gentleman, has been confirmed by one of the Patronage Secretaries to the Treasury, who not only
says there is only one party supporting the Government, but that the Government itself is only of one party, and that party is the Liberal party. A Liberal Government! I hope the quandam Unionist Members will remember that. That being so, what reason is there in these hard times for the existence of two Patronage Secretaries? My hon. Friend has quoted someone who says it is part of the duty of the Whip to keep his party in fighting order. According to the practice of modern times, what they regard as fighting order is to run away from every position they take up. That is not the sort of fighting order we used to associate with British pluck and courage. The right hon. Gentleman has not kept the Prime Minister in fighting order, because on the question of the Ministry of Health he capitulated and discharged the Minister of Health, and on this question to-day of the Minister without Portfolio he has also capitulated. Therefore, I do not see that the Whips have managed to keep the Coalition in good fighting order. In fact, if fighting one another is a sign of good fighting order they are clearly doing something. But as far as that is concerned, I am afraid that the Government are falling between two stools.
Let us see what these gentlemen are doing. The only duty of one of the Patronage Secretaries is to go up and down the country collecting half a dozen bald-headed gentlemen together and calling them to the aid of the Coalition Government. The other Patronage Secretary has to collect together 10 per cent. of the Liberal party in the country. That is, no doubt, quite good work for the party, but I do not think it can be said that the Liberal patronage Secretary is pulling his full strength in the boat by merely bringing in 10 per cent. of superannuated Liberals from various parts of the country. He is not earning his salary, at any rate. I am glad to see present the leader of the Anti-Waste party with some of his followers. I hope they will give this Amendment their support. I may suggest, however, that the real Anti-Waste party sits on the Benches around me. We fought against waste when it was not a very fashionable thing to do. These things are only taken up by the Coalition economists when they become stunts. I except from that my hon. Friend the Member for Wood Green (Mr. Locker-Lampson), who, I
believe, is a genuine economist, but the bulk of the Coalition economists are only moved to action because certain "million sale" papers create a stunt, and that causes them to send a memorial to the Leader of the House. I had hoped that they would have been able to collect the 180 Economists into one united party on the Benches opposite. According to the Leader of the House, and according to one of the Patronage Secretaries, there is only one party now sup porting the Government, only one party in the Government, and that is the Liberal party. Surely, then, one Patronage Secretary should be sufficient to collect the Coalition supporters of the Government into the Lobby, especially when it is known that by the use of one magic word, "dissolution," the Coalitionists are easily collected together.

Mr. LOCKER-LAMPSON: On a point of Order. On this particular Amendment can we discuss the salaries carried on the rest of the Vote or must we first take a decision on this Amendment for reduction?

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN (Sir E. Cornwall): At the present time the discussion had better be confined to the Amendment which has been proposed.

Captain W. BENN: Is it conceivable we are not going to have a word of explanation from the Government? If so, we had better continue this Debate. The Leader of the House might perhaps shorten the discussion by intervening now.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: If by replying at once I could shorten the Debate I certainly will not hesitate to do so, but I know the hon. and gallant Gentleman has taken a good deal of interest in this question, and I imagined he would wish me to wait until he had spoken I have been waiting for him.

Captain BENN: I have not had the advantage of hearing the speeches of my two hon. Friends, but I am very familiar with the arguments on which they base their case, and I cannot conceive that the Government has a shred of a case at all. What is the proposition? It is that £2,000 a year should be voted from public funds to the party funds of the party in power at the present day. It was agreed some years ago that certain offices, including one sinecure office of Patronage Secretary, should be main-
tained for the purposes of the organisation of the party, and we are not proposing to interfere with that, although there might be something to be said for doing so in these days of financial stress. What we are endeavouring to do is to prevent an extension of this policy. The only justification the Leader of the House can put forward for the present proposal is that it was brought into operation by the right hon. Member for Paisley (Mr. Asquith) during the War. The answer to that is very simple. It is that two great parties were then brought together in a national emergency and one of the arrangements made between them was that the Chief Whip of each party should be placed in a position of equality in the Government. The real justification was that the Patronage Secretary was doing a great national service. The whole staff and machinery of the Whip's Office was diverted from party controversies to the question of recruiting. We arranged recruiting meetings, organised a big campaign, and the whole staff was turned on to the great national work of securing recruits. That was the justification for the creation of the two offices. But what justification can be put forward for retaining them now at a time when the country is approaching bankruptcy? I do not think that is putting it too strongly. There is now no public duty to be performed and the right hon. Gentleman who occupies one of the posts of Patronage Secretary is a most esteemed Member of the House. His duty is to organise the party in the country, and he does that much too effectively to suit us on these Benches. But that is not a duty for which we should pay for out of the public purse. I appeal to those hon. Gentlemen who felt stirred about the Minister without Portfolio, and had in many respects an excellent case, to give us the same support in this reduction which has been moved. As the Leader of the House has invited Debate, I appeal to my hon. Friend the Member for Thanet (Mr. E. Harmsworth), who has taken a very active and useful part in checking expenditure, to give us the opinions of those with whom he has worked and who have been so successful recently in appealing to the feeling of the country, as to whether this expenditure is justified. If it is not justified, I suggest to the Leader of the House that
the right thing to do is to reduce this Vote as the Prime Minister did the other one. Then we should hear no more about it, and the hon. Member for Thanet will continue his useful and arduous task, which is growing, at the expense of those who agree with the opinions he holds. That would be a perfectly reasonable arrangement, to which no one on any public ground could take exception. Otherwise, the House of Commons will really make itself ridiculous because while by pressure it has insisted upon the dismissal of a Cabinet Minister who certainly in the past has done useful service to the country, it deliberately votes considerable sums of money out of the Exchequer for a service which is neither more nor less—

Sir T. POLSON: It will not.

Captain BENN: The hon. and gallant Gentleman is to be congratulated upon his hope. We ought not to take any part in voting public funds for what is neither more nor less than a purely party purpose.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I think I was right to wait for the speech which we have just heard, and which the previous momentary incursions of the hon. and gallant Gentleman into the discussion on this subject had led me to anticipate. The hon. Member for the Western Isles (Dr. Murray) explained that he was discharging a duty peculiarly distasteful to him in proposing to reduce the salary of either or both of my friends the Joint Parliamentary Secretaries to the Treasury. No one will feel that the task was distasteful to the hon. and gallant Gentleman. He performed it con amore. I should be more impressed by his arguments on this point if I did not know that, with equal enthusiasm, with equal cogency, and, indeed, with equal passion, he would support a Motion to reduce the salary of every other Member of His Majesty's Government.

Captain BENN: Certainly.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: Those scruples of conscience never troubled my hon. and gallant Friend while he was a Member of the Government.

Captain BENN: There was no opportunity.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: There was no opportunity for his conscience to work
when he was a Member of the Government?

Captain BENN: The right hon. Gentleman has made a brilliant point, but the real point is, that he said that I supported the appointment of two Patronage Secretaries and their payment out of the Exchequer. I never had an opportunity of doing so, and I have never done so. I have taken the first opportunity of protesting against it.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: The hon. and gallant Gentleman suggested by his interjection that we should, all, or, at any rate, many of us, be better if our salaries were reduced, and I pointed out that his scruples of conscience did not trouble him when he was a member of the Government. The hon. and gallant Gentleman says that he was never in the House and never had an opportunity of voting either for or against two Joint Parliamentary Secretaries to the Treasury until after the War. We know, as I said the other day, that he was otherwise and very honourably engaged, and he is perfectly at liberty, without any past to embarrass him, to take what line of action he likes in regard to these joint posts. So is any hon. Member, of course, at any time at liberty to reconsider the position in relation to the present facts, and in a matter of this kind he is not to be held committed, nor do I seek to hold him committed, because he voted for the salaries of two Patronage Secretaires at one time, to continue to do so indefinitely and for all time. I would ask the Committee to look at the matter on its merits. The hon. and gallant Gentleman lends countenance to an observation which, I think, fell from both the hon. Members who preceded him in the Debate, that the Patronage Secretary has no duties but Parliamentary duties. That is not so. The proper performance of his duties is an essential part of the machinery of Government and of the working of this House. If anyone thinks that it is not, let him imagine what would happen if we were not fortunate in obtaining the right kind of man to fill this post. Every kind of difficulty in getting the business of the House done would arise at once. The work of the Patronage Secretary is as essential to the work of the Government of the country as that of any other Minister.
Ought the Patronage Secretaryship to be duplicated at the present time—I am
speaking only of the present time? Why was it duplicated during the War? The hon. and gallant Gentleman, not very charitably, suggested that the duplication took place merely as a condition of coalition, or because, as a condition of coalition, the party with which I am immediately connected demanded it. It would have been perfectly easy for us to ask, or for the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Paisley to say, if we thought that the Patronage Secretary ought to be drawn from our ranks, that that concession should be made to us. The right hon. Gentleman was not bound to appoint a second Patronage Secretary in order to grant that request. He had only to ask his own party Patronage Secretary to give place to one drawn from the other ranks. He did not do that, and he was quite right, because, for the smooth working of a coalition of that kind, and the effective discharge of the business of Government, it was necessary in the circumstances to have two Patronage Secretaries. At the present time it is still necessary. This is a Coalition Government. There are different sections of opinion represented, and, for the present at any rate, in my opinion, it is necessary for the proper working of the Government and the due conduct of its business that we should have the assistance both of my right hon. Friend and of my hon. Friend. I say in present circumstances. I do not say that it is an arrangement that should continue in perpetuity, but neither am I prepared, at this time, to name a date for its conclusion. This and other questions will be considered by us in the light of the need for economy and from the point of view of the public service. We shall consider it in that light and in the light of the requirements of the Government, and we shall review our decision from time to time as circumstances arise. For the present, I ask the Committee to grant to us the facilities for public business which they granted to our predecessors, and not to embarrass us by a vote which will be purely a vote of want of confidence in us.

Mr. HOWARD GRITTEN: Are the two Patronage Secretaries to continue to have the salaries that they have had hitherto? There was a rumour that their salaries were to be halved.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I ask the Committee to vote the salaries at the rate
which has always been customary. The necessity for two Secretaries, and, indeed, the whole position, will be reviewed by us. We have a great many questions of organisation to consider, and when we have less to do, and can find an opportunity, we shall consider it. I do not ask the Committee to say that this is an arrangement which should be perpetuated, but I must respectfully decline to name a date for bringing it to a conclusion.

Mr. E. HARMSWORTH: I cannot consider that the right hon. Gentleman's defence is a good one. I do not think the country is interested in the personal affairs of the Coalition Government or of a party. What they are interested in is national affairs, and national affairs at the moment are centred in finance. If the right hon. Gentleman had proved that, it is essential to the country that the whole working of the Government, whatever Government is in power—

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: May I put the case that the hon. Member's party formed part of a Coalition. It might have to be a Coalition of more than two parties to get a majority Suppose the Anti-Waste party and the Independent Liberal party came into a Coalition.

Mr. HARMSWORTH: No Member of the Anti-Waste party accepting such a position would accept a salary with it. To hark back to the real matter before the Committee the point is whether the country at present can afford even £2,000 more than is absolutely necessary. I do not wish to be factious in any way or to vote for anything which may appear factious, but I shall most certainly support the hon. and gallant Gentleman (Captain Benn) if he goes to a Division. It does not matter whether before the War the hon. and gallant Gentleman was a Member of the Government. There might have been three or four Patronage Secretaries and no one would have said anything. The question is now, when the War has wasted our resources, and the Government since the War has continued to waste our resources unnecessarily why we should have double the number of Patronage Secretaries with double the salaries. It may be a small amount. The Vote we were debating this afternoon was a comparatively small amount, but it is the moral effect of all
these small amounts. The Government must itself economise and do without any unnecessary people before they can go to the Departments and demand that they economise and do without any unnecessary staff. This may be a small drop in the ocean, but they all count in their sum and also in their moral effect.

Colonel P. WILLIAMS: I rise to make an appeal, not in a party spirit, to the Government to reconsider this matter. There is a feeling in the country at present that money is being wasted by the present Administration. The whole of the middle-class people are groaning under the burden of taxation, and the working people are suffering from unemployment, and it will not be long before they are unable to get the necessaries of life. It will not be long before their children's clothes will go to the pawn shop, and here we are voting £2,000 a year for a second Patronage Secretary. There cannot be more work to do than there was before the War, that is, the legitimate work of the Patronage Secretary in the House, and whatever work the second Patronage Secretary has to do is political work done for the party and not for the public welfare. If that is so, the party that employs him ought to pay the salary out of the party funds. I appeal to the Government to adopt the same course that they adopted with regard to the Minister without Portfolio. The Leader of the House has indicated that this is a temporary arrangement. If he would agree to continue these two Patronage Secretaries until the end of the present Session, I think my hon. and gallant Friand would withdraw his Amendment for the reduction. It must be apparent to the Government that they cannot go on spending money at this rate. Every by-election goes against them. You can go to any audience in the country, even an audience in St. George's, Hanover Square. I was talking to a friend the other day, a man who I should have thought would have voted Tory 100 times out of every 100 times he voted. He told me that he, his wife, and the whole of the household voted against the Government because of their extravagance. Whenever we indicate to the Government a way in which they can economise, it is always, "We will economise to-morrow." It is never economise to-day! They always put us off with one plea or another, and I believe they will not economise to-day.

Mr. MacVEAGH: The hon. and gallant Gentleman has conclusively proved that some more definite statement ought to come from the Government Bench than we have had. The Leader of the House has told us that there are two Patronage Secretaries, because there are two political parties in the Government. Surely it is obvious that if a second Patronage Secretary has to be maintained there, because of political exigencies, the political party concerned ought to pay the salary and not ask the taxpayers to pay it. There is no scarcity of funds. I believe there are two political funds in the Government, one run by the Prime Minister's section and the other controlled by the section headed by the Leader of the House. Supporters of the Prime Minister actually go about boasting that they have a fund of £250,000 accumulated for the next General Election.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN (Sir E. Cornwall): We are discussing public money, and not funds belonging to other people.

Mr. MacVEAGH: I have no intention of discussing the fund. I am not wandering off on to that at all. I am only pointing out that there are these funds and it is these funds that should be drawn upon for the payment of the supernumerary secretary rather than the funds provided by the taxpayers. We have had the announcement to-day that one Minister is to be unshipped in order to prevent a hostile vote, or any large section of Members voting against the Government. It was decided to sacrifice the Minister concerned. He was to be thrown to the wolves and a definite date was given when his salary should come to an end. Why cannot we have an equally definite date with regard to the termination of this second salary? Why cannot we be told definitely that three months from now it will come to an end. It was easy to say that about another Minister, why cannot it be said about one of the two Ministers whose salaries are under review? We have heard a great deal about the memorial that was signed by hon. Members threatening to vote against the Government on the question of economy. The Government know the stuff that the memorialists are made of. They know that however many memorials they may sign, and however many protests they may make outside this Chamber, when it comes
to voting they will all skedaddle and the Government will be perfectly safe with its mechanical majority. I invite the Financial Secretary to the Treasury for the sake of consistency, seeing that the two things are happening on the same day, to give the assurance that just as the office of the Minister without Portfolio is to terminate in three months so this dual office of Patronage Secretary to the Treasury should also come to an end three months hence.

Mr. RAFFAN: I support the suggestion that has just been made by the hon. Member. If is extremely reasonable. It is in the nature of a compromise. It does not propose any vote of censure on either of my hon. Friends who are holding the position of Patronage Secretary to the Treasury, and as we have been assured that the position is a temporary one, the Government would only be following the precedent set earlier in the day if they adopted the suggestion to terminate this appointment three months hence. I cannot conceive that the Government will go to the extent of forcing this matter to a Division. If they do, they must march to inevitable defeat. I hold in my hand the document signed by 155 Members, impressing upon the Government the importance of economy, and two of the hon. Members who signed that document are in the House at the present time. I hope that they will not make any professions to their constituents which they are not prepared to carry out here by voting against the Government if they are called upon to divide. Perhaps we shall hear from them the eloquent speeches which they are capable of making.
There can be no doubt as to the feeling of the country on this matter. I am an elector in the St. George's Division, and when I was first informed that a candidate was to be put up against the candidate brought forward by the Government it seemed to me that that candidature could not possibly succeed. For a generation the Unionist political machine has been so powerful that it was practically impossible for any candidate holding other views to be successful, either in Parliamentary, County Council, or other elections. All that the party election, however, the Anti-Waste candidate forward and he was elected by an enormous majority. At the recent by-election, however, the anti-waste candi-
date came forward with no organisation behind him, with a handful of political friends, and because he was able to go before the electors and say that he was standing on the ground of economy he was able to smash up the machine which has existed for so long. [An HON. MEMBER: "How did you vote?"] I am asked how I voted. I do not consider that there is any great difference between my views and that of the hon. Member, and I voted for him because he advocated the cause of retrenchment, which is one of the main planks of the party to which I have the honour to belong. He stood on the issue of economy only, and not on party matters, and the verdict given by that constituency is the verdict that would be given by any constituency.
In these circumstances the Government will be flouting the opinion of the country and the opinions of those who have almost slavishly supported them if they force this to a Division. It is no use the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Leader of the House saying that the fault lies with the House of Commons and not with the Government in regard to excessive expenditure. When appeals are made to them for a saving of this small character, which could easily be made, they will not agree to it. If a small economy like this cannot be effected it is hopeless to expect the larger economies which are essential if the finance of the country are to be stabilised and we are to be able to weather the great crisis by which we are faced. The Government will be most culpable if they do not accede to this very reasonable request for economy.

Captain GEE: I intervene in this Debate because we have heard so much about the opinion of the country, and we have heard so often the wonderful word economy, which ought to be called false economy. The hon. Member has talked about compromise. Compromise with what? Compromise with extravagance or compromise with economy? He admits that one of the Patronage Secretaries should be paid from the party funds and the other from the public purse. If it is wrong for both to be paid out of the public purse, then it is wrong for one to be paid out of public funds. I am surprised that we have not the Anti-Waste party going the whole hog. The fact of the matter is that their anti-waste cry is a cheap journalistic stunt.

Sir T. POLSON: What about Hertford.

Captain GEE: The hon. Member asks what about Hertford? On that occasion, for the first time in the history of British political life, a case occurred where the paid agents of an hon. Member of this House had to be turned out of a public meeting for interrupting the meeting. In other words, it is the first introduction of the Boss Croker system of America brought into British politics, and I do not think the Anti-Waste party has any right to speak, as it does, when three of them had to be arrested. I have been astonished that during the finance Debates of the last few nights the Anti-Waste party has been conspicuous by its absence. That party is really a coalition of two parties with two leaders. The hon. Member for Thanet (Mr. E. Harmsworth) leads one section and the hon. Member for South Hackney (Mr. Bottomley) leads another, and it is quite common to find them going into opposite Lobbies. Last year the hon. Member for Thanet was again conspicuous by his absence during the sittings of this House. He was a leader who was never there to lead. This year in 160 odd Divisions the hon. Member has only been present at about 70, but he is to be commended compared with his co-leader the hon. Member for South Hackney, who during the present year out of 164 Divisions has been present at eight, and on three occasions voted with the Government and on eight occasions against.
The sooner the British nation knows the truth about these political journalistic stunters the better. Out of 80 days in which the House has sat this year, the hon. Member for South Hackney has been seen on 26 occasions. I am sorry he is not here, but no doubt he will read what I am saying, or he will get somebody else to read it for him and tell him. As a Unionist Labour Member, and not an Anti-Waste Member or one of the party of the hon. Member for South Hackney —[HON. MEMBERS: "He got you in!"]— the only difference between the hon. Member and myself is that when we were back to back fighting the foe during the Woolwich Election the Coalition Government was good enough for him. He volunteered his services to come down to help me. I did not ask him. I am consistent. The hon. Member for South Hackney is not. He now is fighting the Government which he got me in to support.

Mr. E. HARMSWORTH: That shows his independence.

9.0 P.M.

Captain GEE: You remember the dump scandal. After several weeks' campaigning in the Press, when the right atmosphere had been created, certain patriotic gentlemen, some of them Members of this House, came along, not from any business idea, but as pure patriots, and said, "We will make an offer to the Disposal Board; we will give them out of purely patriotic motives £15,000,000 for the whole of their dumps." But, fortunately, the Coalition Government were not to be bluffed or frightened. We had business men running it, and through refusing to accept the anti-waste offer of £15,000,000, these dumps have realised up to date £300,000,000, and are not all sold yet. A more glaring charge which I have to bring against these insincere journalistic stunters is this. Those who read certain papers will remember that about four months ago we had the old scandal of the dumps revived again, but it was a particular dump, the Abbeville dump, on this occasion. They produced an advertisement for the sale of a lot of preserved meat. The advertisement said:
Not fit for human consumption, but fit for the manufacture of artificial manure.
That was only half the truth. The remainder of the truth, which the anti-waste papers insincerely neglected to tell, was that that very dump had been sold by the British Government by contract, dated December, 1919.

Dr. MURRAY: Were there any Patronage Secretaries to the Treasury in it?

Captain GEE: I am dealing with the false impression created by the Anti-Waste party and the false economists. It was sold to a French syndicate for 10,500,000 francs, and according as the syndicate paid in the money they were allowed to take away the equivalent in meat, and during the year ending December, 1920, the whole of the 10,500,000 francs, with the exception of 138,000 francs, had been paid to the Disposal Board.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: As far as I can understand the hon. and gallant Member is intending to show that, in his opinion, those who advocate economy are false economists, but he is going a rather long way round in order to do it. He is quite in order in expressing that
view, but he must keep more to the point.

Captain GEE: I shall be very brief. As I said the 10,500,000 francs has been paid, with the exception of 138,000 francs. A few months ago the story was reproduced in the stunt Press, and it was because of the half-truth published that a false impression was created in the minds of the people. The action which Members are taking against the payment of the salaries of the Joint Parliamentary Secretaries to the Treasury is false economy from beginning to end. During the War it was found that one quartermaster, one adjutant and one quartermaster-sergeant were not sufficient in a unit to deal from a business point of view with the work put upon them as a result of the War. It is identically the same with the Joint Parliamentary Secretaries. The work that the two of them have to do to-day cannot be compared with what they had to do in pre-War days. We talk about the War being ended, but we are still suffering from the aftermath of the War. It is real economy to pay the Joint Parliamentary Secretaries for the work they are doing, and false economy to hamper the Government.

Mr. T. THOMSON: The sum of money we are discussing is small, but there is a vital principle at stake and the psychological effect on the country if the Government would accept the Amendment would be far-reaching. During the last all-night sitting the Financial Secretary to the Treasury had the unpleasant task of refusing quite small concessions to the widowed mother and the orphaned son who had to bear the responsibility of maintaining a home. The Financial Secretary was exceedingly sympathetic, but he said that in these days we must economise. These poor people who feel that they have a real claim to consideration would be more contented if they knew that the Government were not only paying lip service to economy, but were setting their own House in order by cutting down expenditure to something like a pre-War standard. Charity begins at home. I think economy should also begin at home. It is false economy to begin on social services. To-day I arranged for an interview with the Minister of Health with the idea of getting a relaxation of the very rigid line of economy now being drawn with regard to housing. It was
pointed out that there were thousands of unemployed. The Ministry met our request with a refusal, which meant that men out of work cannot start on the road-making and other work required in connection with housing schemes. At the same time as one Department is refusing to sanction useful work required for the unemployed the Joint Parliamentary Secretaries are retaining the full amount of their salaries.

Mr. WATERSON: I am sorry that the hon. and gallant Gentleman who represents Woolwich (Captain Gee) has so quickly left the House, because had he been here I would have taken the opportunity of saying that his attitude this evening is, in my judgment, very base ingratitude. When one recalls the history of his entry into this House one has the impression that instead of being a member of the Coalition ranks he was a member of the Anti-Waste party. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] One got that impression because of the many speakers sent down to help him in his election. I am glad that the speeches on this Vote have not introduced the personal element into the Debate. I cannot recall a single remark which has brought in the personal aspect. This appeal to the Government to reduce expenditure by £2,000 can be taken in a better spirit probably than the Debate on the Vote of which we have just disposed, because whatever may be said when the Report of the Debate is read to-morrow the conclusion will be reached that there was much of the personal aspect in our previous discussion. Whatever may be said about the Joint Parliamentary Secretaries, I think the Committee will fully agree that both of them are extremely affable and charming men in every way. One of them happens to represent the county town of a shire of which I happen to represent a division. I do not join in the discussion from that point of view, however. I want to say, first, that I think economy must be effected. It is false economy to economise on those things that make for the social welfare of the country. What excuse will the Government have before the constituencies of the country when they ask the working classes to get back to something like pre-War conditions? One cannot take up a daily newspaper without being confronted with fresh evidence that this company and that indus-
try have determined that the workers shall have a drastic cut in their wages. Whq? Because they are anxious to bring back industry to this country, and to get industry going as it was going in pre-War days.
I suggest to the Government that the offer put forward by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Colonel P. Williams) as to a compromise should be accepted, and that as soon as this Session ends, one of these secretary-ships should cease. That is a very fair offer. If I had the opportunity myself of deciding as between the particular official concerned in this Vote and the Minister who is shortly to leave his office, according to the decision accepted earlier in the day, and to say which of them was most useful to the community, I should say that we could best spare one of these Secretaries. Here is an opportunity of cutting down the expenditure of the country, and I hope the Government will take it and will give a lead to the people. It is no use asking the workers of the country to agree to wages reductions if the Government is not going to make the slightest attempt to bring about a reduction in its own expenditure. I submit that if it is really essential to have two Patronage Secretaries in order to keep the Government, and its machinery well oiled and well managed, why not have another one and make it three. My hon. Friend who represents the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Harmsworth) would be very proud to have the opportunity. Why not have a Patronage Secretary from the Anti-Waste party? We have heard from the hon. Member for Woolwich (Captain Gee) that in the majority of the Divisions they are found voting with the Government. If there is an argument in favour of having two Patronage Secretaries, it is only right and proper that they should have another, for the third section of the Coalition, and spend another £2,000 a year. If my right hon. Friend is really earnest and sincere, he should give a lead to the workers of this country who are being asked to reduce the cost of their living and to sacrifice the ordinary necessaries of life. Let him show by practice and by precept that the Government is doing something to cut down its own expenditure. Here is a glorious opportunity for doing so. It will be to the credit of the
Government if they are prepared to accept the proposition.

Mr. MacVEAGH: Are we not going to have any reply from the Government?

Original Question again proposed.

Mr. MacVEAGH: On a point of Order. I wish to ask whether the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury was entitled to vote in the last Division, seeing that it was a matter which personally affected him?

Question put, "That Item A (1) be reduced by £2,000."

The Committee divided: Ayes, 57; Noes, 115.

Division No. 194.]
AYES.
[9.21 p.m.


Ashley, Colonel Wilfrid W.
Hartshorn, Vernon
Newbould, Alfred Ernest


Banbury, Rt. Hon. Sir Frederick G.
Hayday, Arthur
Norris, Colonel Sir Henry G.


Barnes, Major H. (Newcastle, E.)
Hayward, Evan
Polson, Sir Thomas A.


Benn, Captain Wedgwood (Leith)
Hodge, Rt. Hon. John
Raffan, Peter Wilson


Birchall, Major J. Dearman
Hogge, James Myles
Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)


Briant, Frank
Holmes, J. Stanley
Robinson, S. (Brecon and Radnor)


Cairns, John
Irving, Dan
Royce, William Stapleton


Cape, Thomas
Johnstone, Joseph
Sexton, James


Clough, Robert
Jones, G. W. H. (Stoke Newington)
Sueter, Murray Fraser


Colfox, Major Wm. Phillips
Kelley, Major Fred (Rotherham)
Swan, J. E.


Collins, Sir Godfrey (Greenock)
Kenyon, Barnet
Thomson, T. (Middlesbrough, West)


Davies, Thomas (Cirencester)
Kiley, James Daniel
Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton, E.)


Entwistle, Major C. F.
Lawson, John James
Waterson, A. E.


Falle, Major Sir Bertram Godfray
Locker-Lampson, G. (Wood Green)
White, Charles F. (Derby, Western)


Galbraith, Samuel
Lowther, Major C. (Cumberland, N.)
Williams, Aneurin (Durham, Consett)


Glanville, Harold James
MacVeagh, Jeremiah
Williams, C. (Tavistock)


Grundy, T. W.
Mallalieu, Frederick William
Wood, Major M. M. (Aberdeen, C.)


Hall, F. (York, W. R., Normanton)
Morgan, Major D. Watts



Halls, Walter
Mosley, Oswald
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Harmsworth, Hon. E. C. (Kent)
Myers, Thomas
Colonel Penry Williams and Dr.




Murray.


NOES.


Addison, Rt. Hon. Dr. Christopher
Geddes, Rt. Hon. Sir E. (Camb'dge)
Neal, Arthur


Ainsworth, Captain Charles
Gee, Captain Robert
Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)


Armitage, Robert
George, Rt. Hon. David Lloyd
Palmer, Major Godfrey Mark


Baird, Sir John Lawrence
Gibbs, Colonel George Abraham
Pease, Rt. Hon. Herbert Pike


Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Gray, Major Ernest (Accrington)
Percy, Charles (Tynemouth)


Balfour, George (Hampstead)
Grayson, Lieut.-Colonel Sir Henry
Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)


Barnett, Major Richard W.
Green, Albert (Derby)
Pollock, Sir Ernest Murray


Barnston, Major Harry
Green, Joseph F. (Leicester, W.)
Pratt, John William


Blades, Sir George Rowland
Greenwood, William (Stockport)
Prescott, Major W. H.


Blair, Sir Reginald
Gritten, W. G. Howard
Purchase, H. G.


Breese, Major Charles E.
Hacking, Captain Douglas H.
Randles, Sir John Scurrah


Broad, Thomas Tucker
Hamilton, Major C. G. C.
Roberts, Rt. Hon. G. H. (Norwich)


Brown, Major D. C.
Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry
Robinson, Sir T. (Lanes., Stretford)


Buckley, Lieut.-Colonel A.
Haslam, Lewis
Sanders, Colonel Sir Robert Arthur


Carr, W. Theodore
Henry, Denis S. (Londonderry, S.)
Sassoon, Sir Philip Albert Gustave D.


Chadwick, Sir Robert Burton
Holbrook, Sir Arthur Richard
Seager, Sir William


Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. A.(Birm., W.)
Hope, Sir H. (Stirling & Cl'ckm'nn'n.W.)
Seddon, J. A.


Churchman, Sir Arthur
Hopkins, John W. W.
Shaw, Hon. Alex. (Kilmarnock)


Cobb, Sir Cyril
Hotchkin, Captain Stafford Vere
Shaw, Capt. William T. (Forfar)


Colvin, Brig.-General Richard Beale
Hunter, General Sir A. (Lancaster)
Shortt, Rt. Hon. E. (N'castle-on-T.)


Coote, Colin Reith (Isle of Ely)
Jameson, John Gordon
Smith, Sir Harold (Warrington)


Cory, Sir J. H. (Cardiff, South)
Jones, Sir Edgar R. (Merthyr Tydvil)
Stanier, Captain Sir Beville


Davison, Sir W. H. (Kensington, S.)
Jones, Sir Evan (Pembroke)
Stanley, Major Hon. G. (Preston)


Dean, Lieut.-Commander P. T.
Jones, J. T. (Carmarthen, Llanelly)
Sturrock, J. Leng


Denniss, Edmund R. B. (Oldham)
Kellaway, Rt. Hon. Fredk. George
Taylor, J.


Dewhurst, Lieut.-Commander Harry
King, Captain Henry Douglas
Thomas, Sir Robert J. (Wrexham)


Doyle, N. Grattan
Lane-Fox, G. R.
Waddington, R.


Edge, Captain William
Law, Alfred J. (Rochdale)
Wallace, J.


Edwards, Major J. (Aberavon)
Lindsay, William Arthur
Ward, Col. J. (Stoke-upon-Trent)


Elliot, Capt. Walter E. (Lanark)
Lloyd-Greame, Sir P.
Waring, Major Waiter


Evans, Ernest
Loseby, Captain C. E.
Wilson, Colonel Leslie O. (Reading)


Falle, Major Sir Bertram Godfray
M'Curdy, Rt. Hon. Charles A.
Winfrey, Sir Richard


Farquharson, Major A. C.
Macdonald, Rt. Hon. John Murray
Wise, Frederick


Fell, Sir Arthur
McLaren, Robert (Lanark, Northern)
Young, E. H. (Norwich)


Flannery, Sir James Fortescue
Matthews, David
Young, Sir Frederick W. (Swindon)


Forestier-Walker, L.
Moreing, Captain Algernon H.



Forrest, Walter
Morison, Rt. Hon. Thomas Brash
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Fraser, Major Sir Keith
Munro, Rt. Hon. Robert
Mr. Parker and Lieut.-Colonel Sir


Ganzoni, Sir John
Murray, C. D. (Edinburgh)
J. Gilmour.


Gardiner, James
Murray, John (Leeds, West)

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: It is quite clear that it is a question of public policy and not a matter of personal interest.

Sir G. COLLINS: I wish to direct the attention of the Committee to a subject which I think transcends in importance every other question in finance before
the public to-day, that of the National Debt. It is little realised, the overbearing and very heavy burden of the National Debt, a burden which falls on every taxpayer. The amount of the National Debt absorbs some 8s. in every £ of direct taxation levied this year. The point to which I am anxious to direct the attention of the Financial Secretary to the Treasury is this. During the last few weeks the Government have issued a long term 6 per cent. loan. They very properly decided to issue that loan, as has been their custom in the past, without consulting the House of Commons. I do not suggest for a moment that the Government should come to the House and ask whether the terms of the loan should be at the rate of 5 per cent. or 6 per cent., but the Committee are entitled to press their views upon the Government on such an important matter. In regard to that loan, the Government had such little confidence in British credit that they pledged the taxpayer to pay 6 per cent. on an unlimited amount for the very long period of 40 years. It may be that the rate of interest to-day for Government stock is 6 per cent., but is British security to be so low that for the long period of 40 years no Government in this country will be able to borrow at a lower rate than 6 per cent.?
The experience after all former wars has been that during the war, when capital was wasted, the rate of interest naturally rose, but gradually, as peace conditions returned, the rate of interest fell, conversions were effected, and the interests of the taxpayer were safeguarded. The Government, by their policy, offered 6 per cent. for 40 years. The point I am anxious to put to the Financial Secretary and to the Chancellor of the Exchequer is this: If they are forced, as they will be forced, to borrow in the next 12 or 24 months and to offer to the public, it may at 6 per cent., but not for such a long period, then do not pledge the credit of the British Government for such a high rate of interest for 40 years. I am encouraged in that suggestion by the views expressed by the late Leader of the House. Speaking in June, 1919, on the subject of the Victory Loan in the City of London, he said:
Though, indeed, the rate"—
that is, the rate of interest—
is attractive, though I feel sure that ten years hence people looking back on what we are doing to-day will say it was a rate higher than it was necessary to give, it will seem a rate "—

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: The hon. Member will forgive me for one moment. I understand, from communications that have passed, that the hon. Member wants to raise some large questions of policy which may occupy the whole of the evening. It is absolutely necessary, as I said earlier to-day, that we should get the Railway Vote in order that we may be able to fulfil our obligations. If that is acceptable to the hon. Member, I will move the Adjournment of this discussion in order that we may proceed with the Railway Vote, undertaking to give an additional day in Supply, when I will put this Vote down.

Sir G. COLLINS: I am sure hon. Members associated with me in this matter are anxious, if possible, to fall in with the views expressed by the Leader of the House. He will agree that the subject of the National Debt is all important. We understand that the Government will give another day for the Debate on this important point, and in view of that I will resume my seat.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: Then I ask leave to withdraw the Motion, in order to take the next Vote.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

UNCLASSIFIED SERVICES.

RAILWAY AND CANAL AGREEMENTS.

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £21,220,000 (including a Supplementary sum of £9,000,000), be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1922, to meet Expenditure arising from the Government Control of Railways and Canals in Great Britain and Ireland under the Regulation of the Forces Act, 1871, Section 16, and Defence of the Realm (Consolidation) Regulations, 9 H."— [Note.—£18,000,000 has been voted on account.]

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of TRANSPORT (Mr. Neal): I think the Committee will require some explanation why we are compelled to introduce this Supplementary Vote. This Vote is one relating to the Railway
Agreements, and the sum now asked to be voted is £21,220,000. It is made up as follows: as to a sum of £12,000,000, the balance of the original Vote, and as to the remainder, £9,000,000, a Supplementary Estimate. The original Vote on Railway Agreements was for £30,000,000. In the Vote now under discussion there are items in respect of the Government pool of railway rolling stock which nearly balance at £1,000,000 and £780,000. Unless hon. Members desire some explanation of these items, I do not propose to spend any time on them. The reason why we have to come to the Committee to-night for this Vote may be summed up in one phrase, it is entirely owing to the coal dispute. As every hon. Member is aware, under the Agreement investigated by the Colwyn Committee, the Government are pledged to make to the railway companies a certain payment during the period of control. That period will happily end on the 14th August next, although but for the Ministry of Transport Act there would still be more than two years to elapse. The Agreements secured to the railways their revenue for the year 1913, the highest year the railways have known, and incidentally it has saved the shareholders from any loss in the matter of dividends throughout the whole period, and last year there was paid in dividends on the railways a larger sum by about £1,000,000 than had been paid in the boom year 1913.
I would like to make quite clear to the Committee at once that the sums which we are paying to the railway companies in monthly amounts are in no sense comparable with the actual working figures of the railways during a normal period. The sums which we are asking the Committee to vote, and which we are under contract and obligation to the railway companies to pay, are not the sums which arise from the ordinary working of the railways. They secure to the railways their net revenue for 1913, the revenue of a boom year being paid to the railways in a year of unparalleled depression and trouble, industrial and otherwise. They include items for maintenance of the railway companies' plant and undertakings, which is being undertaken on a generous scale, done at high cost during a period of slackness and depression when no business would have undertaken it in the ordinary course. It also includes items for overtaking arrears of maintenance; it covers the loss which is
arising from trade depression, and it covers the loss which is arising from the disastrous dispute in the coal trade. I want to make this matter quite clear from this point of view, that no one can draw any inference at all as to the future of the railways from the figures which we are compelled under these agreements to bring to the notice of the Committee.
As to the actual figures, in the original Estimate we asked for a sum of £30,000,000 on the railway and canal agreements. As to the canal agreement, there are only a few balancing sums of insignificant amount to come into the account, so I propose to direct my attention entirely to the sums to be paid to the railway companies. We asked for a Vote of £30,000,000. The House voted to us a sum of £18,000,000 on account. We have already had to disburse up to the end of April in respect of the railway agreements, in round figures, £12,500,000. We have only, therefore, on the Vote on Account some £5,500,000 in hand, but the accounts for May, which fall due for payment this month, are estimated at £9,000,000, so that without coming to the. House now for the further Vote we should be unable to meet the Government's obligations up to the end of May. It is estimated that in this further period of control, June, July, and up to the 14th August, claims may be made that the Government is under contract to admit of £18,500,000, and that may be increased. These figures were made out on the basis and the hope, which has not been realised, that the dispute in the coal trade might have come to an end last Friday, the 18th June, under the ballots which were then taken. Whether this figure for which we are now asking is adequate or not depends very largely upon the period by which there is a prolongation or this unhappy dispute, and, therefore, we are compelled to ask the Committee to give us this sum of money in order that we may meet our obligations.
I should like to give the Committee some information as to the effect of trade depression, followed by the coal dispute, upon railway revenue and railway traffic. In the month of March last, compared with the month of March, 1920, there was a decline in goods tonnage carried upon the railways of 27 per cent. That was a figure indicating the extent of trade depression as between those two months.
As every hon. Member knows, the coal dispute became operative at the beginning of April, and in the month of April the goods tonnage carried upon the railways, in round figures, was 9,500,000 tons, compared with 27,300,000 tons in the corresponding month of the previous year. In other words, in the first month of the coal dispute there was a loss of traffic in goods of 65.3 per cent. The coal decrease itself was £13,700,000. The actual haulage of coal in the month of April, compared with the corresponding month of the previous year, fell by 89 per cent., but that was not the only traffic that was affected. Ironstone traffic fell by 88 per cent., iron and steel traffic fell by 68 per cent., and pig iron traffic fell by 70 per cent. These figures are instructive, not only as showing the reason for this Vote, but giving, I think, to the country in a simple and striking form the paralysing effect of this great dispute which is now in its twelfth week, and I feel sure that I carry the feelings of every hon. Member with me when I express the sincere hope that it may not be long before that struggle comes to an end. Passenger traffic figures I will not trouble the Committee with, but they also show a very substantial reduction.
I do not want anyone to be confused by the fact that I have used the figure of £30,000,000 as being in our Vote. It has no relationship whatever to a further figure of £30,000,000 which will come in course of payment during this financial year if and when the arrangement made by the Government for the liquidation of the post-control liabilities becomes operative. In the Railways Bill now before Standing Committee, there is a sum of £30,000,000 to be paid this year, half of the total of £60,000,000 to be paid in the settlement with the railway companies. When Parliament has sanctioned that sum it will be necessary to come to the Committee again and ask for a Vote in respect of that £30,000,000, a further Supplementary Estimate, which I think hon. Members will realise could not possibly take form until Parliamentary sanction in respect of that settlement has been received.

Captain W. BENN: We are quite used to Supplementary Estimates.

Mr. NEAL: Also I am sure the hon. and gallant Member knows that some of them are abundantly justified.

Captain BENN: Only some of them?

Mr. NEAL: This one is, and that is the only one I am concerned with. The reason I have mentioned this figure now is two-fold. First, to prevent there being any confusion between the similarity of the two figures, and, secondly, because when we do come to the further Supplementary Estimate we shall be enabled to present, as we hope, the final figures which will have resulted from this depression in trade and from the coal dispute, and this sum of £30,000,000 may be decreased or increased slightly according as the accounts turn out. I hope I have given sufficient explanation to the Committee why we have been compelled to introduce this Vote.

Major BARNES: It will be a matter of encouragement to the Committee that a spirit of discrimination is visible even on the Front Treasury Bench in discussing the justifiability of the various Supplementary Estimates. Perhaps when that spirit has found time to spread amongst the higher posts of the Government, it may lead to a reconsideration of some proposal at present, or even to their withdrawal. There is, to anyone unfamiliar to Parliamentary ways, a contrast between this Committee with this subject involving the expenditure on Supplementary Estimates of at least £9,000,000, its sparsely-peopled Benches, and the crowded and animated scene upon which we looked a few hours ago when the passionate and intense enthusiasm for economy (so recently appearing) among the supporters of the Government, found in the salary of the Minister of Health a chance to save the enormous sum of £2,000! When one realises how intense was the earnestness on that point of economy, it is remarkable that so little interest should be shown in the expenditure of the vast sum which we are now asked to Vote. That comment, I think, it is probable the public, equally with myself, will make.
In this case the Ministers concerned with the presentation of these Estimates are to some extent relieved of the responsibility which normally attaches to Ministers. I want to say frankly, what I think I have already said in the House, that I regard the work of the Ministry of Transport as of great advantage to the country. The feelings with which I re-
garded the Minister of Transport when I first entered this House, I must say, were entirely different to the feelings with which I regard him now, for I have become convinced that, within the limits of his power, he has done well. I hope my eulogium is not proving distasteful to the right hon. Baronet for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury), whom I see leaving the Committee. I know that his views on this subject are very different to mine. Even so I regard the work which, in the main, the Minister has done upon the subject of these railway agreements, as being to the advantage of this House and the country. Agreements have been made with the railway companies, agreements of an extraordinary character, and the House is only beginning to perceive how extraordinary are these agreements when Members are faced with the Vote that we now have before us. This particular body of people are being relieved entirely of the strokes of misfortune which bad trade and the coal stoppage has laid on the shoulders of other industries. They have got in these railway agreements, perfect shelter, bomb-proof, trade-proof, misfortune-proof under which they are sheltered from any possible disadvantages that adverse circumstances in trade bring upon the rest of the community.

Mr. SEDDON: But the companies did not share in the War profits?

Major BARNES: My hon. Friend opposite is putting the other side of the case. He says that the railway companies had no plunder in the War. That is perfectly true. The railway companies were not able to take advantage of the circumstances of the War in a way in which, according to the statement made by the Prime Minister this afternoon, a great many other people were. That is quite true. No costings department had to be brought into existence and applied to them to bring their rates and charges down to what was reasonable and fair. On the other hand, there were a great many people in the country who were not able either to take advantage of the War, but who on the other hand were not preserved from the disadvantages of the War. So that in that respect these railway agreements have given the railway shareholders an extraordinarily advantageous position—how great we are only beginning to see.
I do not propose now to go into the question of these railway agreements, for they have been fairly well thrashed out. Their history and in degree the responsibility for them has already been before the House. Having said what I have said with regard to the Minister of Transport a few moments ago, I am not sure, so far as this Supplementary Vote is concerned, that he is entirely free from all blame. It may be so. I hope it is so. But this Vote is the result of the action of the Government of which the Minister is a Member. This £9,000,000 is the outcome of the coal stoppage. It is the burden which has fallen upon the Government and the country because of circumstances connected with the decontrol, of the mines. The point I want to make, and the question I want to put, is this: The Cabinet were considering the question of the decontrol of the mines, and they were balancing on the one hand the saving expected. So far as my recollection goes, when they came before the House with the Measure for decontrol, it was strongly resisted from this side of the House, and the very strongest appeals were made to the Government to defer their action. The Bill was pushed through in the middle of the night. At that time, if I remember rightly, we were told—I am not sure it was not by the Prime Minister—that there was in question a burden of £1,000,000 per week on the taxpayer. From this side estimates were put forward as to the amount of breathing time that should be allowed to effect a settlement. I think six weeks were asked for, and then a month. Six weeks would have cost £6,000,000 and a month £4,000,000, and if the whole period of the present coal stoppage had been taken that would have cost £12,000,000. If they had maintained coal control, although it was a bad bargain, and assuming that up to the period of decontrol a settlement had not been effected, then the amount would have been something like £20,000,000. The Minister must bear his responsibility in respect of the action taken by the Government. When balancing gains and losses I suppose the Minister of Transport advised the Government as to the bearing of their action upon the coal agreements. That is his real responsibility. He knew what the agreements were and what we were likely to be liable for under them. Under the construction of those agreements which the Government accepted the
country was going to be liable for all the trade depression which must follow a great coal stoppage. We have seen the result in these Supplementary Estimates, the figure of £9,000,000 is what we are asked for, and that is almost entirely due to the coal stoppage.

Mr. NEAL: Directly or indirectly.

10.0 P. M

Major BARNES: The Minister of Transport is facing this matter with his usual courage. There is £9,000,000 here for a period of nine weeks. I think it was the business of the Government, when they were balancing gains and losses, to take into account all the circumstances, and if they were looking at it from the money point of view and the cost to the taxpayer, it was a most material thing that they should take into consideration what would arise under these railway agreements. We know what has arisen. I think a great many people will be inclined to ask what it was in the minds of the Government that made such a difference in their treatment of coal control and railway control. What were the circumstances? What made them, on the one hand, in such haste to abandon control, with its consequent result, and, on the other hand, what has made them cling to railway control, with the burden which arises in consequence? That is probably not a matter on which we can ask the Minister of Transport to speak, and it is more a matter for the Prime Minister. We are certainly entitled to ask why the Government did not get rid of coal control and railway control at the same time, and I think that is a fair comment. That is not based upon matters for which the Minister of Transport is responsible, but upon a situation in the responsibility for which he must take his proper share. The Parliamentary Secretary has endeavoured, very rightly and properly, to make clear to the House that what we are dealing with here has nothing to do with the sum that the House will be asked to vote in regard to the Railways Bill. What we are dealing with now is the burden on the taxpayer on account of the running of the agreement. On the date on which they terminate there is to be a fixed sum paid under the Railways Bill in settlement of all claims. That is a position which the Minister accepts, although it
is not entirely accepted by some representatives of the railway companies. It cannot be too often repeated, and it should be made clear, that when we come to pay that £60,000,000 we get rid of every liability arising out of the acts of the Government in connection with the railways. It is only because I understand that to be so that I am giving any support to that proposal. I understand that this is not the end of it. We have been told by the Parliamentary Secretary that this £9,000,000 is only an estimate for six weeks.

The MINISTER of TRANSPORT (Sir Eric Geddes): To the 18th June.

Mr. NEAL: I said it was framed in the hope that the coal stoppage would have ended last Friday.

Major BARNES: At all events this sum is for a period which has already passed, and we are now into a fresh period and fresh liabilities are accumulating and we must be faced very shortly, in the event of the coal stoppage not being concluded shortly with further Supplementary Estimates. This is a small House, but this question seems to me to have a most important bearing upon the continuance of the coal stoppage. When we take into account the obdurate and adamant refusal at the time they were decontrolling coal to accept any other settlement, when we see that we are suffering a loss of £9,000,000, and that the Government did make an offer of £10,000,000 although they have withdrawn it, we do see that apart from the withdrawal of that offer there would have been a sum of over £20,000,000 involved. This seems to be just one of those examples which are becoming so frequent in this House, and which are coming so conspicuously before the notice of the public, of steps taken by the Government which have resulted in extraordinary financial loss to the country.
Very shortly we shall be asked to repeal a portion of the Agriculture Act which is going to cost millions of ponds, and that is another example of the same kind. These are not Estimates which call for criticism in any very great detail, because they are not very small sums. There are no questions of the salaries of typists or the wages of charwomen, but we are really on to the big things, and we are dealing with a situation which
is going to cost us big sums. I give the Minister of Transport the credit of having a desire to settle this question and bring it to an end. The right hon. Gentleman is like the bird in the hall in the old fable. He has flown in at one end and will shortly pass out at the other. I know there are birds and birds, and, at all events, the advantage of some birds are that they are more easy to shoot than others. I do not say that this applies in his case, but I am quite sure that, as far as the Minister himself is concerned, he would be very glad before he leaves his office to see the whole of this situation cleared up, and I would ask him, as far as he has any weight with the Government—[Laughter]—I am much obliged to the Committee for bringing out the points of my speech better than I am able to do. But, leaving out that dangerous word, let me ask the Minister to do what I am sure he will do, to use all the influence he has with the Government to put an end to the situation which is creating this expenditure. On one small point of detail, I would like to ask the Minister what part of this Supplementary Estimate arises out of his relationship with the canals all over the country?

Sir E. GEDDES: £50,000. We are merely closing up the old accounts. There is no accruing liability.

Major BARNES: One is glad to hear that. One generally expects everything to show nothing but a loss. The only question is, how much the loss will be. It is not the fact that there is a loss that surprises us. What gratifies us is that the loss should be less than we expected. I would like to know what is the position in regard to the canals. Does the Minister propose to retain them under his administration?

Sir E. GEDDES: They are not under it now. They are decontrolled.

Major BARNES: That removes them from the possible sphere of loss.

Sir E. GEDDES: It removes them from the sphere of Estimates.

Major BARNES: That is the same thing. The House is in a very good mood, but I think it would be a misfortune if the general good temper of the House was to minimise the seriousness of the position now before us. After all, we are
here as custodians of the public purse, and we are at the present moment faced with a loss of £9,000,000 arising out of a situation over some of the causes of which the Ministry has had no control, but for the main causes of which the Government are largely responsible. I hope the Minister will tell us something that will alleviate the gloom of the situation.

Mr. R. RICHARDSON: May I thank the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport for his frankness. He has been quite frank in saying that it is the coal stoppage which has largely caused the loss on the railways. Had the Government of which my right hon. Friend and the Parliamentary Secretary are members acted as they ought to have done none of this loss would have accrued. I remember two or three years ago that the Government, in trying to settle a dispute between the miners and the mine-owners, undertook to set up a Commission to enquire into the whole circumstances of the coal trade, and they appointed probably one of the ablest men of this country, Mr. Justice Sankey, as head of that Commission, and that Commission condemned the whole position in the coal trade and said it could not be defended. So far as the miners are concerned, they had no part in the setting up of that Commission, but they accepted it in good faith as a settlement of all disputes between coalowners and coalminers. The Government in their wisdom or their folly turned down every particle of that report with one exception, that they agreed that the minerals should be nationalised. Some of us miners sitting on these Benches are still waiting for some move in that direction. After all, we feel that if that were done some saving might be made.
Subsequently, when the Government determined to decontrol the mines, from these Benches Member after Member rose in his place and pointed out to the Government the extreme danger they were running, and that the expenditure was likely to be very much enhanced as compared with what it would cost to keep control going until 31st August. To-day we have a vindication of what he said at that time. But from the Benches opposite the only answer that we got to the plea we put forward was, "I beg to move that the Question be now put." That con-
tinued during the whole of that remarkable night. It is some satisfaction, after all, but it is an ironical satisfaction, to the miners on these Benches when they see that what they warned the Government against has happened. We say that the blame for the whole of this extraordinary expenditure thrown upon this country must rest on the shoulders of the present Government. It is their action that has caused it. We are more than anxious to get this country back to stability. We have no desire to starve our wives and children, nor have we any desire to make this country a bankrupt nation. Everyone of us loves his country only too well. All that we plead for as miners is simple justice. I now take the figures the Minister of Transport has placed before us, asking us to pay million after million to people who have little or no claim to the millions they are going to get. Had the railways been in the hands of the shareholders and this stoppage occurred there would have been no millions given. It is a bad contract, and one has to excuse the present Minister, because he was not, I believe, in office when these contracts were made between the Government and the railway shareholders. These people get everything they require, and the miners must work to bring back stability for a wage that will not feed and clothe their wives and children. That is what we are asked to do to bring back stability, and yet money is poured out like water to other people who can afford to do without Coming to the railways themselves, I remember a discussion in this House when the Minister was introducing his first Bill. Terrible opposition was coming from the railway shareholders on the Benches opposite, and the Minister made this remark, "It is either this Bill or nationalisation." I believe in his heart of hearts he thought the second course the better one. We are paying it to the people who have during the War made many millions while the miners of the country are at the same time being asked to accept cuts in wages which will bring them down below the level of 1914—a condition which the Prime Minister himself declared to be unthinkable. We are to go back to that while these millions are to be handed over to people who have already made a rich harvest. I do not desire to stand
between this House and a Division, but I feel the position acutely. If the Government would have taken its courage into both hands and given the miners what they asked for when we were pleading on their behalf much suffering might have been avoided. If the claims we put forward on behalf of the miners had been conceded we should have got the wheels going.

The CHAIRMAN: I am afraid we cannot go into the merits of the coal dispute. The hon. Member is quite in order in arguing that decontrol has produced certain effects, but he is not entitled to go into the merits of the dispute itself.

Mr. RICHARDSON: I am sorry. I knew I was in error, but one feels this matter very intensely and is all the more likely to make a mistake when, as in my case, one goes home every week and witnesses the privations which the people are suffering—privations which might have been avoided if the Government had only acted on our suggestion. But they turned it down more than once. We are not seeking strife, we are only asking for simple justice. The Government set up a Commission and we understood that its findings would be accepted by the Government. We on our part were prepared to accept them. We were determined, as far as was in our power, to bring peace to our industry with a view to helping this country to arrive at better and more prosperous times. I trust that the Minister for Transport will convey to his colleagues in the Government what has been said by the hon. Member for Newcastle (Major Barnes) and what will probably be said later on by other hon. Members of this House. Let them not pay so much attention to Members below the Gangway who are prepared to cut down ruthlessly every branch of Government expenditure except where the country can best afford to do without it. Let the Government see that justice is done to the worker who is, after all, the greatest asset of this country. Industry must be kept going and the people who toil in it must have the wherewithal to live. They must not be kept down to the line of poverty. Let the Government do what they can to bring to an end this terrible dispute, and at the same time give justice to the people employed in the industry.

Sir G. COLLINS: I beg to move that the Vote be reduced by £5,000.
As I understand it the Government, in asking for this Vote, have based the amount on the assumption that the coal dispute was coming to an end on the 18th June. Therefore it is clear that the Vote asked for this evening may have to be supplemented in the immediate future. There has been already one Estimate for this. We are now considering a second Estimate. The Parliamentary Secretary agrees there will be another. All this shows that in this, as in other matters, the Government have taken too optimistic a view of the situation, and that they are forced by events to come at a later stage and ask for further sums of money. A sum of £39,000,000 is to be paid to the railway companies in respect of the control period, and a further £30,000,000 under the agreement which the Ministry of Transport has carried through with the railway companies. That is a total, this year, of £69,000,000 already, and there is a further liability of £30,000,000 for the, coming year. That is the story of Government control over railway finance in the short period of 12 months. The taxpayer is required to find the sum of £99,000,000, excluding further Supplementary Estimates, for Government control over the railway companies of this country.
The mere mention of that figure shows the appalling losses in which Government control has landed the country. I do not desire to lay any blame on the Ministry of Transport for that result. I join rather with my hon. and gallant Friend (Major Barnes) in congratulating the Minister on his handling of this matter, especially during the last six months. I have had the opportunity of saying that before in the House, and the reduction I have moved is based, not on the attitude of the Minister in regard to railway control, but on the causes which force the Government now to come to the Committee for a further £9,000,000 of the taxpayers' money. I think that before voting this, the Committee is entitled to ask the Minister what economies he is asking the railway companies to adopt during this period. The taxpayer is being forced to find the money; are the railway companies being asked to economise? We are entitled to ask what definite steps the Ministry of Transport is taking to safeguard as far as possible
the interests of the taxpayer in connection with this Supplementary Estimate. If the railway expenditure is reduced throughout the country, either by the stoppage of works or by allowing expenditure to stand over to a more fortunate period, the burden on the taxpayer through the passage of this Supplementary Estimate will not be so high, and therefore the Committee is entitled to ask what definite steps the Ministry of Transport is taking, faced as it is with this appalling loss, not caused by any administrative act or any policy of the Ministry of Transport, but by the Government policy which has landed the country in this coal stoppage. The Parliamentary Secretary told the Committee frankly that this sum was entirely due, if I understood his words correctly, to the coal dispute.

Mr. NEAL: The coal dispute and the trade depression. You cannot separate the two and say how much is due to the one and how much to the other.

Sir G. COLLINS: I agree that it is impossible to attribute any particular percentage to the coal dispute, but the larger proportion is due to that cause. Therefore, we are making use of the Parliamentary opportunity which the Government have given of moving a reduction of this Vote, as a protest against the mishandling of the coal stoppage during the last eleven weeks. The coal stoppage continues, and here I echo the sentiments, with which I entirely agree, expressed by the Parliamentary Secretary in moving the Vote, when he said that he was sure every Member of the Committee would join with him in the hope that this stoppage would cease in the immediate future. We are entitled to ask the Government what steps they are going to take 'to bring this stoppage to an end. Have they any further constructive suggestions to put before the coal trade? Here are these 1,000,000 men out of work, the Government having raised a defence force costing a large sum of money, and there being more trouble amongst the reservists than amongst the three or four millions out of work.

The CHAIRMAN: I really do not think this is in order. It is an indirect issue, but it has no direct reference.

Sir G. COLLINS: Can the Committee address itself to any constructive sugges-
tions to bring this disastrous situation to an end? This day week, to solve some trouble in the Far East, the Government offered subsidies to certain Arab tribes. It has been well said that the copious outpouring of public money often enables Governments to avoid awkward situations. The Government have offered £10,000,000 to avoid a sharp break—

The CHAIRMAN: The stoppage in the coal trade may be, no doubt, one of the causes why this sum is asked for, but it would be an intolerable extension if every possible remedy for that could be suggested. If the hon. Gentleman develops that argument, there will be replies from the Government and the coal-owners, and the whole question of the railway agreement would be completely lost.

Mr. MacVEAGH: I submit that inasmuch as the Minister has made it clear that the bulk of this £1,000,000 a week is directly due to the coal strike and that we are continuing to pay it as a consequence of the coal strike, is it not in order to urge the Government to take such steps as will bring this payment to an end?

The CHAIRMAN: No, I think not. It would be an undue extension of the Debate. It is quite in order to argue that the Government were in default in allowing the coal control to cease, but there will really be no end to the ramifications of the discussion if the merits of the present coal stoppage and possible remedies for it were to be discussed.

Captain W. BENN: We heard from the Minister, not only that this sum is required as a consequence of the coal stoppage, but that the Government would present other Supplementary Estimates as a consequence of the stoppage. Do you rule that we cannot suggest means of rooting out the sources of these Supplementary Estimates?

The CHAIRMAN: Yes, I do so rule.

Sir G. COLLINS: I understand you limit the discussion to only an indirect reference. As a protest, therefore, against the handling of the situation I move to reduce the Vote by £5,000, and I will ask the Government to explain what the future loss will be if the coal stoppage continues. Each week, I have no doubt,
the loss on the railways is increasing. As the depression deepens and works are shut down the losses on the railways will increase week by week. Therefore, I hope we shall have some statement from the Minister of Transport advising the country as to what the future loss will be, week by week, if the stoppage continues.

Captain BENN: The figures that have been read out from the Chair do not appear to have been the figures in the Supplementary Estimate, which amounts to £39,000,000.

The CHAIRMAN: The figures read out are made up by the original Estimate of £30,220,000, less the sum voted under the Vote on Account, and the £9,000,000 additional that is now required. My attention was called to that, and I satisfied myself on the point.

Mr. MYERS: I beg to support the Amendment, and I express my satisfaction as to the observation made by the Minister in respect to canals, in so far as his Department is concerned with them now, that they are no longer a liability upon the State.

Sir E. GEDDES: I said that no further liability is now accruing.

Mr. MYERS: It is desirable that we should inquire what steps the Minister has taken with respect to the working of the canals in future. It is a notorious fact that the canals have been very largely neglected for a large number of years, and advantages that could have been derived from them for the benefit of the community have not been forthcoming. That is due to the fact that many of the canals came under the control of various railway companies, but not for the purpose of being used by the railway companies. On the contrary, the railway companies put the canals out of action—

The CHAIRMAN: I am afraid this is out of order. There is a sum of £50,000 in these Estimates for canals, but the whole question of canal policy cannot arise on the Supplementary Estimate.

Mr. MYERS: Specific mention has been made of canals in the Estimate, and I thought I should be in order in inquiring if the Minister has taken steps to ensure their more satisfactory use in the future.
We have been informed that the Supplementary Estimate is made necessary very largely on account of the extra losses incurred upon the railways, in consequence of the coal dispute. I desire to emphasise the inquiry made by the hon. Member who has just spoken as to what the Government are doing to cut their losses in this direction. If they cannot see any possibility, are they making any attempt to cut any of these losses? It is very significant that after the decision which was taken last Saturday nothing has been said or done in this House with respect to the dispute, although we are told that the dispute is causing tremendous loss to the railways, which has to be made up by the country. There are too many evidences of callous disregard of the situation which is prevailing, and we may be pardoned if we think there is a feeling on the part of the Government that a few days or a few weeks' starvation may have the necessary effect, which might not be produced by other steps.
The decontrol of the railways and the coal mines when compared show that the Government took the wrong turning. Up to the end of March this years the railways were a liability on the State. There was no liability for the coal mines. At the end of last December there was a surplus of £20,000,000 in the Exchequer on the coal mines account, and any loss incurred during the first three months of this year was met from the surplus, so that there was no liability before the coal dispute took place. The railways had been a liability on the State for the whole year, and if it was desirable to decontrol the coal trade which had been no liability on the State at the end of March, it was equally desirable to decontrol the railways which were a liability. But the Government took the wrong turning.
I do not agree with the suggestion that the responsibility which we have to meet in respect to the railway is due entirely to the coal dispute. It has been due to what is termed an agreement made with the railway companies, but what I would rather call a series of loose understandings. These understandings put on the State a responsibility to the extent of £47,000,000 a year. That has been paid to the railway companies ever since the outbreak of the War and will continue to be paid up to a certain date in August. The Parliamentary Secretary is introducing legislation, when reciting the heads
under which these sums had to be paid, referred to a controversy as to the maintenance of the railway system. On the Second Reading of the Railway Bill the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. J. Wilson) who has been an official of the Railway-men's Union, stated that the condition of the railways at this moment is as good as, if not better, than when they were taken over in 1914, and neither the Minister nor any hon. Member interested in the railways denied that statement. It is notorious that the railway companies, being assured of their net revenue, whatever their income or expenditure, have been improving their property at the public expense out of the takings of the booking office and the receipts for goods traffic which the railway companies handle by improving their permanent way, building new stations, adding extra rolling stock, all the while -being sure of their £47,000,000.

Sir E. GEDDES: I am sure that my hon. Friend does not wish to mislead the Committee. The railways, as a whole, have not done what he said. It is my business and the business of my office, as far as possible, to see that they do not. Wherever they do, as far as we can detect them, the expense is challenged, and I have to date, in this Financial Year, stopped an expenditure of £1,000,000 which is in dispute.

Mr. MYERS: I agree that the right hon. Gentleman and his Department have endeavoured to exercise such oversight of railway expenditure as they were able to exercise, but notwithstanding that supervision it is well known that a large volume of work has been done on the railway systems at the expense of the taxpayers. If there is one thing more than another that it is almost impossible to defend it is the teeming out of these millions from the public exchequer into the coffers of the railway companies. If any undertakings have made a good deal with the Government, the railway companies have done so. Here and now, in a time of trade depression that began long before the miners' dispute, we continue to hand out millions of the taxpayers' money. We are told that £30,000,000 is to be paid this year and £30,000,000 next year for arrears of maintenance, for abnormal wear and tear, and for renewal of rolling stock, and the experts on our side of the House, the judges of what the railwways are, tell us
that, despite the fact that this £60,000,000 is to be paid, the railways are in a better condition to-day than they were in 1914. We are entitled to express the opinion that if railway interests had been less powerful in this House than they are, a different policy would have been pursued.

Mr. CAPE: Every hon. Member must have been grateful to the Parliamentary Secretary for the frank way in which he submitted this Estimate to the House. Seeing that no industry is so vital to the country as the coal industry, which was decontrolled so rapidly and with so little consideration, one cannot help wondering why, when the decontrol of the railways is discussed, such minute consideration is given to making provision for the finances of the railways. The Government has discriminated very widely between the most vital industry and the most vital means of transport in the country. They cut off the mining industry entirely, and the cry from the benches on the other side was that no subsidy of any kind should be paid to any industry. The Minister in charge of the Mines Department told us the coal industry must stand on its own feet and do the best it could. When we came to consider the decontrol of the railways we were told we had no right to ask the directors and shareholders of the railways to stand on their own feet, but that they should be set up on the backs of the taxpayers. A large grant was given from the Exchequer to meet the demands of the railway companies, in accordance, as we were told, with certain agreements which had been previously made. Now we find we are to be saddled with further burdens, to make up any losses sustained by the railway companies as a result of the coal stoppage. I ask the Minister to tell us definitely when our financial obligations to the railway companies are to cease? I understand final decontrol of the railways must take place m August, but one never knows what this Government is going to do. If the railway directors and shareholders who sit on the Back Benches press the Government for more financial assistance, there is no knowing when our obligations in this respect will be terminated.
The Parliamentary Secretary said that this year railway shareholders have received £1,000,000 more in profits than in
the boom year of 1913. That is a startling statement when everybody is crying out for economy and demanding that wages shall be cut down or the country's industries cannot exist. If that be so, I cannot understand why the shareholders of railway companies should be entitled to £1,000,000 more than they received in the most favourable year in railway annals. In regard to the loss which has caused this Supplementary Estimate to be presented, the Parliamentary Secretary told us there had been a 90 per cent. decrease in the coal traffic over the railways, and that the passenger traffic had also decreased. Even in the passenger traffic the coal stoppage has had an effect. It is not the few people who use season tickets, or those who travel on free passes from whom the main passenger revenue of the railways is derived. The working class passengers, who have to take short journeys, contribute the most remunerative passenger traffic. The Parliamentary Secretary has frankly admitted that the Supplementary Estimate has been rendered necessary by the coal stoppage, and he also says it only covers up to 18th June. Therefore we have incurred further liability during this week, and we are entitled to ask that the Minister of Transport, who is a Member of the Cabinet, should use his influence to bring about a satisfactory ending to the coal stoppage.
Anyone who can do anything to help bring it to a satisfactory conclusion will be rendering good service to the State and to the community as a whole. Therefore, with these few remarks of protest against the Supplementary Estimate, I ask those in authority to do all they can to help to get us out of this seemingly impossible position.

Sir E. GEDDES: I feel I have to thank the Committee for the way they have considered this Estimate, because the criticisms have been mainly, not upon the Estimate or upon the Department which I represent here, but upon other matters connected with our industrial difficulties. I should like to answer some of the questions which have been put. My hon. Friend (Sir G. Collins) asked what economies had been introduced. The greatest economy you can introduce in railway working at a time like this is a reduction of services, and that, of course, has been brought about by the shortage of coal and the need for conserving coal, which received immediate
attention. With that you get the inevitable and, at the same time, regrettable laying-off with the men. We were in agreement with the men that they would receive a guaranteed week's pay until they were called out on one day of the week. There had to be a discussion before that guaranteed week could be interrupted, the only alternative being to dismiss the men entirely. I should like to say at once that after the coal dispute appeared to be drifting into a lengthy one, the railway management met the men at my suggestion. The guaranteed week was, by agreement, set on one side and the men are being paid half a week's pay by agreement with them. So, to that extent, there have been economies introduced with the consent of the union and, I am glad to say, without, what some people feared, friction.
Again, at a time like this, wherever one is entitled to do so under these agreements, we are not paying what my hon. Friend will quite understand when I call it excess expenditure, incurred at the present time: we are holding that back. In other ways, the railways, in consultation with the Ministry where necessary, are bringing in such economies as are possible. Of course, the overhead charges are enormous in the working of very small traffic, and you cannot make economics anything like adequate to meet the position.
The hon. Gentleman (Mr. Cape) wanted to know when the Government liability would come to an end. The period of guarantee comes to an end on 15th August. After that date all the current expenditure of the railways will be on their own account. The back accounts, and they run back for some years, which are not settled—I think 1914 is finally closed, I am not quite sure, but 1915 is not—will have to be scrutinised. A careful scrutiny has been made, but the accounts are intentionally not closed. The reason for that is that I do not wish to close the accounts finally earlier than I can avoid, because in the later years items may come to light where we and the railways differ. As long as the account is not closed we can go back and pick that sequence of items up right through, so that there is to that extent some little method in our madness. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Newcastle (Major Barnes) asked whether the Cabinet had
been fully advised on the railway position, when considering from time to time the question of the coal dispute, and I can, of course, assure him there that I did not neglect my duty in the matter. In considering it, the Cabinet had before them very prominently the railway situation from the point of view of finance.
There are two points on figures which I would like to correct. The first is an error for which I think inadvertently I was responsible. I did not give the wrong statement, so far as I know, but it was taken up wrongly. I said there was possibly £50,000 in the Vote for canals. As a matter of fact, out of the total Vote for the year, the £39,000,000 now before the Committee, about £500,000 has gone to canals in respect of the liabilities which accrued prior to decontrol in June of last year. That £500,000 has gone, but there is about £50,000 more which will possibly have to go. The other point which I think in fairness to the Committee I ought to make clear, is this, because I think every hon. Member who has spoken has fallen—and probably it was our fault—into the same error. If the Committee will look at the Note at the bottom of the Estimate, they will see that the sum is to meet deficiencies and a provisional sum on account to meet other claims. The whole of the original Estimate of £30,000,000, in so far as this Estimate goes, will go to meet deficiencies, plus £9,000,000, so that the cost of the coal strike direct and indirect is not, as many hon. Members have said, £9,000,000. It is £9,000,000 on top of any excess which will come under the original £30,000,000 Vote. It is difficult to say exactly what it will amount to.

Captain W. BENN: What were the other sums included here? Was it the settlement when the railways were decontrolled?

Sir E. GEDDES: The figures will not quite add up arithmetically, because it is difficult to know what they will be exactly, but roughly about £20,000,000 of the original £30,000,000 Estimates was to meet the deficiency on the expenditure and the receipts from time to time—not from month to month—and also it included the dividends. The other £10,000,000 was put in in order to give us something to wipe off other claims. The whole of the £30,000,000 is for deficiencies, part of which arose from back
periods and trade depression, and partly due to the coal stoppage, direct and indirect. The £10,000,000 which we have allowed for other claims will, of course, be all wiped off by the £60,000,000 settlement which has been submitted, but the actual effect of the coal stoppage on the railway payments is not the £9,000,000 for which we are asking now, but a larger sum. It is difficult to say how much of the trade depression is directly attributable to the coal strike.

Mr. HALLS: The coal stoppage.

11.0 P.M.

Sir E. GEDDES: I beg the hon. Gentleman's pardon, the coal stoppage. As nearly as I can get it—the Committee, I know, will take it as a rough estimate—it is costing about £6,000,000 a month. The extra deficiency for April over March was £5,150,000. We allow the same sum for May. We allow half the sum for June. That is £13,875,000—it must be a little bit more than that now. The £6,000,000 is directly or indirectly attributable to the coal stoppage.

Sir G. COLLINS: The question excluding the £30,000,000 in the Railway Bill being considered upstairs, and the £30,000,000 of postponed liability till next year, and this present £39,000,000 —a total of £99,000,000— excluding any further Supplementary Estimates?

Sir E. GEDDES: That, I think, is quite accurate. I think I have answered all the questions put, and the matter I have been asked to do, I will convey to the Prime Minister.

Captain BENN: [HON. MEMBERS: "Divide, divide!"] I have no desire to put hon. Members to any inconvenience by detaining them, but hon. Members must remember that this is a most vital matter, namely, the expenditure of large sums of money. My hon. and gallant Friend (Sir G. Collins) has just elicited that the whole business is costing over £100,000,000. The Parliamentary Secretary has told us that so long as the coal stoppage continues we shall have about £6,000,000 monthly to pay. I would remind hon. Members who are anxious to terminate the proceedings of another scene in this House a few months ago. Solely on the ground of economy, the Government suddenly brought coal control to an end, for they said it was
purely a question of money. The result was the whole of the trouble with which we are faced to-day. The effect here is something exceeding £9,000,000; the other £15,000,000; and the enormous other Votes to which I can only refer inferentially—the Army and Navy Votes. The reduction moved by my hon. and gallant Friend is out to save £5,000; it is a reduction to indicate that in the opinion of the House the Government have mismanaged the coal dispute— grossly mismanaged the coal situation. So far from saving money by their conduct, by decontrol they have wasted millions more than would have been involved in the temporary extension of that control.

Mr. ROYCE: I should like to extend to the Minister of Transport my sympathy for having to ask for this large sum of money to compensate the railways for the losses they have sustained. We have listened from time to time to the ills under which the railways have suffered owing to Government control, and I should like to know what is the nature of that control. During the whole of that control there has not been a single change in the personnel of the railways and every man employed on the line has been exactly the same. The only control that has been exercised from time to time is that the Minister has been compelled to come here and ask for large sums of money for the benefit of the railway companies. The right hon. Gentleman has told us that to-day he has prevented the payment of £1,000,000 claimed by the railway companies. I think we are to be congratulated upon having a Minister who looks so well after the interests of the country. I do not blame the Minister in this matter, but I wish the Committee to realise what an excellent bargain the railways have made, and when we hear so much of the wrongs of the shareholders I am compelled to reflect and point out that they have been treated in a most handsome manner. The right hon. Gentleman said that certain economies had been effected and that the railways had saved by putting the men on short time. In that case, who pays? It is a sacrifice on the part of the men, but still the payment goes on to the railway companies just the same and there is no diminution in the amount paid to them. I think this should be regarded as a debit against the railway
companies. The whole business about these agreements arises from a lack of courage on the part of the Government and their failure to carry out their promise to nationalise the railways. You have the same trouble in the coal trade. This stoppage will probably represent to the nation a cost greater than the total required to buy out the mines. Here we have to pay £99,000,000 to the railway companies, which I believe could easily be made up, with this amount now in suspense, to quite 10 per cent. of the total value of the railways, and the State has nothing whatever in return for that money.

Lieut.-Colonel J. WARD: Yes, it has got double fares.

Mr. ROYCE: Yes, we have got double fares, and I shall be very much surprised if those fares are not increased very shortly. The steps which we are taking to place the railways under the control of the companies again will put the travelling and commercial public in this country in a very much worse position than they are in at the present time, and those sanguine Members who hope to find a reduction in railway charges will have a very rude awakening in the near future. I know I shall be told that a lot of this expense is due to increased wages, but wages would have been increased in any case. The exact result of what the Government have done in regard to control of the railways is nil except so far as footing the Bill is concerned. Here we have high railway rates, and every prospect of them being increased, and the country is still called upon to pay £99,000,000, and there is a very large amount in suspense. Ordinarily we should have had the benefit of the advice of the right hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London on financial questions, but when it is a question of granting money for the railways he is judiciously silent. I hope he will be able to give his views on the subject as to whether the shareholders have not had a very excellent time during the War and have not the prospect of a very fair time in the future. I am sorry to keep the Committee, but I did feel it my duty to say two or three words on this subject and to warn the Committee if they think that by the process we are going through upstairs, they are going to secure a large number of railway facilities, that in my opinion they will be very much mistaken.

Mr. HALLS: I was very pleased to hear from the Benches opposite the admission that economies had been effected, and that in order to effect those economies the men had been put upon half-time. There is a general feeling among the workmen on the railways that in effecting economies of this kind it is hardly done with due fairness to all concerned. Whilst the least paid worker on the railways has had to go on half-time, the people who are paid the higher salaries have not had to suffer any economies at all. You will realise what this means when I tell you that with my own organisation it is costing us something like £60,000 per week to pay 2s. 6d. a day for the days lost by the men employed on the railways. I submit that if economies are to be effected in order to save the State undue burdens in consequence of the Government's blunder in decontrolling the mines, then it is fair that those who are in a better position, including the shareholders, should be asked to bear some of the burden, and not merely the wage-earners. It has been truly said that we are not yet at the end of this business. I well remember about three years ago, as a candidate in 1918, that my opponent, the hon. Member for Northampton, used a statement the Colonial Secretary had previously made. It was one of the stock lines during that election that the railways were to be nationalised, and I feel that the common-sense section of the community will agree that had the Government followed up that policy we should not have been confronted with the situation that now obtains. I had the impression before I came to this House that to a very great extent the Ministers on the Front Bench were the victims of big business. I am more satisfied to-day, with my short experience of this House, that they are the victims of big business in the shape of the railway interests that have been able to drive a bargain of this kind and get their interests so well safeguarded and protected while the ordinary worker has got to suffer short pay. I hope that the lesson we are going through and the penalty that the community has got to pay will not be lost on the people of this country. I hope, on reflection, that they will see that if they had backed Labour opinion in this country, and compelled the Government to carry out their pledges with regard to the Sankey Com-
mission and with regard to the nationalisation of the railways, we would not have been in the position we are in to-day.

Resolutions to be reported To-morrow. Committee to sit again To-morrow.

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

Question put, "That a reduced sum, not exceeding £21,215,000, be granted for the said Service."

The Committee divided: Ayes, 31; Noes, 149.

Division No. 195.]
AYES.
[11.16 p.m.


Acland, Rt. Hon. Francis D.
Hartshorn, Vernon
Swan, J. E.


Barnes, Major H. (Newcastle, E.)
Hayday, Arthur
Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton, E.)


Benn, Captain Wedgwood (Leith)
Hay ward, Evan
Waterson, A. E.


Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W.
Holmes, J. Stanley
White, Charles F. (Derby, Western)


Briant, Frank
Lawson, John James
Williams, Aneurin (Durham, Consett)


Cairns, John
Lowther, Col. Claude (Lancaster)
Williams, Col. P. (Middlesbrough, E.)


Cape, Thomas
MacVeagh, Jeremiah
Wood, Major M. M. (Aberdeen, C.)


Entwistle, Major C. F.
Morgan, Major D. Watts



Finney, Samuel
Murray, Dr. D. (Inverness & Ross)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Glanville, Harold James
Myers, Thomas
Sir Godfrey Collins and Mr. R.


Hall, F. (York, W. R., Normanton)
Newbould, Alfred Ernest
Richardson.


Halls, Walter
Royce, William Stapleton



NOES.


Addison, Rt. Hon. Dr. Christopher
Foxcroft, Captain Charles Talbot
Neal, Arthur


Archer-Shee, Lieut.-Colonel Martin
Fraser, Major Sir Keith
Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)


Armitage, Robert
Ganzoni, Sir John
Nicholson, Reginald (Doncaster)


Ashley, Colonel Wilfrid W.
Geddes, Rt. Hon. Sir E. (Camb'dge)
Norris, Colonel Sir Henry G.


Baird, Sir John Lawrence
Gibbs, Colonel George Abraham
Oman, Sir Charles William C.


Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Gilmour, Lieut.-Colonel Sir John
Palmer, Brigadier-General G. L.


Balfour, George (Hampstead)
Gould, James C.
Parker, James


Banbury, Rt. Hon. Sir Frederick G.
Grayson, Lieut.-Colonel Sir Henry
Parry, Lieut.-Colonel Thomas Henry


Barlow, Sir Montague
Green, Albert (Derby)
Pease, Rt. Hon. Herbert Pike


Barnett, Major Richard W.
Green, Joseph F. (Leicester, W.)
Peel, Col. Hon. S. (Uxbridge, Mddx.)


Barnston, Major Harry
Greenwood, William (Stockport)
Pennefather, De Fonblanque


Bell, Lieut.-Col. W. C. H (Devizes)
Gretton, Colonel John
Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)


Bellairs, Commander Carlyon W.
Gritten, W. G. Howard
Pollock, Sir Ernest Murray


Betterton, Henry B.
Hacking, Captain Douglas H.
Pratt, John William


Birchall, Major J. Dearman
Hamilton, Major C. G. C.
Pretyman, Rt. Hon. Ernest G


Bird, Sir A. (Wolverhampton, West)
Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry
Purchase, H. G.


Borwick, Major G. O.
Hennessy, Major J. R. G.
Rankin, Captain James Stuart


Bowyer, Captain G. W. E.
Henry, Denis S. (Londonderry, S.)
Raw, Lieutenant-Colonel Dr. N.


Boyd-Carpenter, Major A.
Hohler, Gerald Fitzroy
Roberts, Samuel (Hereford, Hereford)


Breese, Major Charles E.
Holbrook, Sir Arthur Richard
Robinson, S. (Brecon and Radnor)


Broad, Thomas Tucker
Hood, Joseph
Royden, Sir Thomas


Brown, Major D. C.
Hope, Sir H.(Stirling & Cl'ckm'nn.W.)
Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney)


Buckley, Lieut.-Colonel A.
Hopkins, John W. W.
Sanders, Colonel Sir Robert Arthur


Carr, W. Theodore
Hopkinson, A. (Lancaster, Mossley)
Sassoon, Sir Philip Albert Gustave D.


Chadwick, Sir Robert Burton
Hotchkin, Captain Stafford Vere
Seager, Sir William


Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J A. (Birm. W.)
Hunter-Weston, Lieut.-Gen. Sir A. G.
Seddon, J. A.


Churchman, Sir Arthur
Jameson, John Gordon
Seely, Major-General. Rt. Hon. John


Clough, Robert
Jodrell, Neville Paul
Shortt, Rt. Hon. E. (N'castle-on-T.)


Coats, Sir Stuart
Jones, J. T. (Carmarthen, Llanelly)
Smith, Sir Allan M. (Croydon, South)


Colfox, Major Wm. Phillips
Kellaway, Rt. Hon. Fredk. George
Stanley, Major Hon. G. (Preston)


Conway, Sir W. Martin
Kenyon, Barnet
Stephenson, Lieut.-Colonel H. K.


Coote, Colin Reith (Isle of Ely)
King, Captain Henry Douglas
Surtees, Brigadier-General H. C.


Cope, Major William
Lambert, Rt. Hon. George
Thomas-Stanford, Charles


Davidson, J. C. C. (Hemel Hempstead)
Lewis, Rt. Hon. J. H. (Univ., Wales)
Townley, Maximilian G.


Davidson, Major-General Sir J. H.
Lindsay, William Arthur
Townshend, Sir Charles Vere Ferrers


Davies, Thomas (Cirencester)
Lloyd-Greame, Sir P.
Tryon, Major George Clement


Davison, Sir W. H. (Kensington, S.)
Locker-Lampson, Com. O. (H'tingd'n)
Waddington, R.


Dean, Commander P. T.
Lorden, John William
Wallace, J.


Dewhurst, Lieut-Commander Harry
Loseby, Captain C. E.
Walters, Rt. Hon. Sir John Tudor


Doyle, N. Grattan
Lyle, C. E. Leonard
Ward, Col. L. (Kingston-upon-Hull)


Edge, Captain William
M'Lean, Lieut.-Col. Charles W. W.
Waring, Major Walter


Edwards, Allen C. (East Ham, S.)
Macleod, J. Mackintosh
Wheler, Col. Granville C. H.


Edwards, Major J. (Aberavon)
Mallalieu, Frederick William
Williams, C. (Tavistock)


Elliot, Capt. Walter E. (Lanark)
Marriott, John Arthur Ransome
Winfrey, Sir Richard


Evans, Ernest
Matthews, David
Wise, Frederick


Eyres-Monsell, Com. Bolton M.
Molson, Major John Elsdale
Young, E. H. (Norwich)


Falle, Major Sir Bertram Godfray
Montagu, Rt. Hon. E. S.
Young, Sir Frederick W. (Swindon)


Farquharson, Major A. C.
Moreing, Captain Algernon H.



Fildes, Henry
Murray, C. D. (Edinburgh)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Forestier-Walker, L.
Murray, John (Leeds, West)
Colonel Leslie Wilson and Mr.


Forrest, Walter
Nail, Major Joseph
Dudley Ward.


Original Question put, and agreed to.

ADJOURNMENT.

Resolved, "That the House do now adjourn."—[Colonel Leslie Wilson.]

Adjourned accordingly at Twenty-six Minutes after Eleven o'clock.